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THE 



CALYINISTIC DOCTRINE 



OF 



PREDESTINATION 

EXAMINED AND REFUTED: 

BEING THE SUBSTANCE OP 

A SERIES OF DISCOURSES 

Delivered in St. George's M. E. Church, Philadelphia, 
BY 

FRANCIS HODGSON, D.D. 



,si>4 



PHILADELPHIA: 
HIGGINS AND PERKINPINE. 

No. 40 NORTH FOURTH STREET, 

1855. 



b 



Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1854, by 
FRANCIS HODGSON, 



in the Office of the Clerk of the District Court of the United States in and 
for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. 






The Library 

of Cong \< ess 



WASHINGTON 



ta 



PHILADELPHIA : 
T. K. AND P. G. COLLINS, PRINTERS. 



Ill 



Philadelphia, July 13, 1854. 
Eev. Francis Hodgson, D. D. 

Dear Sir : We, whose names are hereunto annexed, 
having heard your recent series of discourses upon the 
" Divine Decrees/' and believing that their publication 
at this time would be of great service to the cause 
of truth, earnestly desire that such measures may be 
taken as will secure their publication at an early 
period. We therefore respectfully solicit your con- 
currence, and that you would do whatever may be 
necessary on your part to further our object: — 

James B. Longacre, P. D. Myers, 



Garret Vanzant, 
John J. Hare, 
Daniel Brewster, 

WM. Gr. ECKHARDT, 

Ciias. Coyle, 
Benjamin Heritage, 
J. 0. Campbell, 
James Harris, 

WM. GrOODHART, 

R. 0. Simons, 
Amos Horning, 
Enos S. Kern, 
Jno. P. Walker, 
John Street, 
J. W. Butcher, 
Jacob Hendrick, 



R. McCambridge, 
Thomas W. Price, 
Chas. McNichol, 
Thos. M. Adams, 
Francis A. Farrow, 
Thos. Hare, 
Samuel Hudson, 
Joseph Thompson, 
David Dailey, 
Jno. R. Morrison, 
James Huey, 
John Fry, 
E. A. Smith, 
James D. Simkins, 
S. W. Stockton, 
Foster Pritchett. 



IV 



Dear Brethren : — 

The motives which induced me to preach the dis- 
courses on the " Divine Decrees" are equally decisive 
in favor of their publication, as you propose. I have 
taken the liberty to rearrange some parts of them 
for the benefit of the reader. 
Yours, 

FRANCIS HODGSON. 
To Brothers Longacre, 

Myers, and others. 



PREDESTINATION. 



DISCOURSE I. 

1 'In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being 
predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh 
all things after the counsel of his own will." — Eph. i. 11. 

It would very naturally be expected of a 
preacher, selecting this passage as the founda- 
tion of his discourse, that he would have some- 
thing to say upon the subject of predestination. 
It is my purpose to make this the theme of the 
occasion; and this purpose has governed me in 
the selection of the text. The subject is one 
of great practical importance. It relates to 
the Divine government — its leading principles 
and the great facts of its administration. Some 
suppose that the Methodists deny the doctrine 
of Divine predestination, that the word itself is 
an offence to them, and that they are greatly 
2 



14 CALVINTSTIC DOCTRINE 

perplexed and annoyed by those portions of 
Scripture by which the doctrine is proclaimed. 
This is a mistaken view. We have no objection 
to the word; we firmly believe the doctrine ; and 
all the Scriptures, by which it is stated or im- 
plied, are very precious to us. 

There is a certain theory of predestination, 
the Calvinistic theory, which we consider un- 
scriptural and dangerous. There is another, 
the Arminian theory, which we deem Scriptural 
and of very salutary influence. My plan is, 
first, to refute the false theory ; and, secondly) 
to present the true one, and give it its proper 
application. 

My discourse or discourses upon this subject 
may be more or less unacceptable to some on 
account of their controversial aspect. This 
disadvantage cannot always be avoided. Con- 
troversy is not always agreeable, yet it is often 
necessary. Error must be opposed, and truth 
defended. What I have to say, is designed 
chiefly for the benefit of the younger portion 
of the congregation. I feel that there devolves 
upon me not a little responsibility in reference 
to this class of my hearers. Many of them, I 
am happy to learn, are eagerly searching for 






OF PREDESTINATION. 15 

truth, and they have a right to expect that the 
pulpit will aid their inquiries, and throw light 
upon their path. 

The theory of predestination to which we ob- 
ject affirms that God has purposed, decreed, pre- 
determined, foreordained, predestinated, what- 
soever comes to pass, and that, in some way or 
other, he, by his providence, brings to pass 
whatever occurs. 

The advocates of this doctrine complain loudly 
that they are misunderstood and misrepresented. 
The Rev. Samuel Miller, D. D., late of Prince- 
ton College, N. J., in a tract on Presbyterian 
Doctrine, published by the Presbyterian Board 
of Publication, complains thus: "It may be 
safely said that no theological system was ever 
more grossly misrepresented, or more foully and 
unjustly vilified than this." "The gross mis- 
representations with which it has been assailed, 
the disingenuous attempts to fasten upon it 
consequences which its advocates disavow and 
abhor; and the unsparing calumny which is 
continually heaped upon it and its friends, have 
scarcely been equalled in any other case in the 
entire annals of theological controversy.' ' " The 
opponents of this system are wont to give the 



16 CALYINISTIC DOCTEINE 

most shocking and unjust pictures of it. Whe- 
ther this is done from ignorance or dishonesty 
it would be painful, as well as vain, at present, 
to inquire." " The truth is, it would be difficult 
to find a writer or speaker, who has distinguished 
himself by opposing Calvinism, who has fairly 
represented the system, or who really appeared 
to understand it. They are forever fighting 
against a caricature. Some of the most grave 
and venerable writers in our country, who have 
appeared in the Arminian ranks, are undoubt- 
edly in this predicament: whether this has arisen 
from the want of knowledge or the want of can- 
dor, the effect is the same, and the conduct is 
worthy of severe censure. " " Let any one 
carefully and dispassionately read over the Con- 
fession of Faith of the Presbyterian Church, 
and he will soon perceive that the professed re- 
presentations of it, which are daily proclaimed 
from the pulpit and the press, are wretched 
slanders, for which no apology can be found 
but in the ignorance of their authors." 

He places himself in very honorable contrast 
with those whom he thus severely condemns : 
" The writer of these pages," says he, "is fully 
persuaded that Arminian principles, when traced 



OF PKEDESTESTATION. 17 

out to their natural and unavoidable conse- 
quences, lead to an invasion of the essential 
attributes of God, and, of course, to blank and 
cheerless atheism. Yet, in making a statement 
of the Arminian system, as actually held by its 
advocates, he should consider himself inexcusa- 
ble if he departed a hair's-breadth from the de- 
lineation made by its friends. " (pp. 26, 27, 28.) 

This writer reiterates these charges, with in- 
teresting variations, in his introduction to a 
book on the Synod of Dort, published by the 
same establishment. " They," says he, " are 
ever fighting against an imaginary monster of 
their own creation. They picture to themselves 
the consequences which they suppose unavoida- 
bly flow from the real principles of Calvinists, 
and then, most unjustly, represent these conse- 
quences as a part of the system itself, as held 
by its advocates. " Again: "How many an 
eloquent page of anti-Calvinistic declamation 
would be instantly seen by every reader to be 
either calumny or nonsense, if it had been pre- 
ceded by an honest statement of what the sys- 
tem, as held by Calvinists, really is." {Synod 
of Dort, p. 64.) 

The Rev. Dr. Beecher says, in his work on 
2* 



18 CALVINISTIC DOCTKISTE 

Skepticism : " I have never heard a correct 
statement of the Calvinistic system from an 
opponent;" and, after specifying some alleged 
instances of misrepresentation, he adds : " It 
is needless to say that falsehoods more absolute 
and entire were never stereotyped in the foundry 
of the father of lies, or with greater industry 
worked off for gratuitous distribution from age 
to age." 

The Rev. Dr. Musgrave, in what he calls a 
Brief Exposition and Vindication of the Doc- 
trine of the Divine Decrees, as taught in the 
Assembly's Larger Catechism, another of the 
publications of the Presbyterian Board, charges 
the opponents of Calvinism in general, and the 
Methodists in particular, with not only violently 
contesting, but also with shockingly caricaturing, 
and shamefully misrepresenting and vilifying 
Calvinism — with " systematic and wide-spread 
defamation" — with " wholesale traduction of 
moral character, involving the Christian repu- 
tation of some three or four thousand accredited 
ministers of the gospel." His charity suggests 
an apology for much of our " misrepresentation 
of their doctrinal system" on the ground of our 
" intellectual weakness and want of education;" 



OF PKEDESTINATIOK. 19 

but, for our " dishonorable attempts to impair 
the influence" of Calvinistic ministers, and u in- 
jure their churches," he u can conceive of no 
apology." 

The Rev. A. Gr. Fairchild, D. D., in a series 
of discourses entitled The Grreat Supper, likewise 
published by the Presbyterian Board of Publica- 
tion, complains in these terms : " Sectarian par- 
tisans are interested in misleading the public 
in regard to our real sentiments, and hence 
their assertions should be received with caution. 
Those who would understand our system of doc- 
trines, must listen, not to the misrepresentations 
of its enemies, but to the explanations of its 
friends." (p. 40.) Again: "As these men can- 
not wield the civil power against us, they will 
do what they can to punish us for holding doc- 
trines which they cannot overthrow by fair and 
manly argument. God only knows the extent 
to which we might have to suffer for our reli- 
gion, were it not for the protection of the laws! 
For, if men will publish the most wilful and 
deliberate untruths against us, as they certainly 
do, for no other offence than an honest differ- 
ence of religious belief, what would they not do 



20 CALVINISTIC DOCTRINE 

if their power were equal to their wickedness?" 
(P- 73.) 

This writer expresses his sense of the "wick- 
edness of those who oppose Calvinism" in still 
stronger terms : " If, then, the doctrines of 
grace [Calvinism] are plainly taught in the 
Scriptures, if they accord with the experience 
of Christians, and enter largely into their pray- 
ers, then it must be exceedingly sinful to oppose 
and misrepresent them. Those who do this will 
eventually be found fighting against Gf-od. We 
have recently heard of persons praying publicly 
against the election of grace, and we wonder 
that their tongues did not cleave to the roof of 
their mouth in giving utterance to the horrid 
imprecation." (p. 178.) Ah ! These Method- 
ists are very wicked ! 

The Rev. L. A. Lowry, author of a recent 
work, entitled Search for Truth, published by 
the same high authority, discourses as fol- 
lows : — 

" When I see a man trying to distort the 
proper meaning of words, and presenting a 
garbled statement of the views of an opponent, 
I take it as conclusive evidence that he has a 
bad cause ; more when he is constantly at it, 



OF PREDESTINATION. 21 

and manifests in all that he does a feeling of 
uneasiness and hostility towards those who op- 
pose him. During my brief sojourn in the Cum- 
berland Church, I was called upon to witness 
many such exhibitions, that, in the outset of my 
ministerial labors, made anything but a favora- 
ble impression on my mind. I found there, in 
common with all others who hold to Arminian 
sentiments, the most uncompromising and ma- 
lignant opposition to the doctrines of the Pres- 
byterian Church, while there was not a man 
that I met in all my intercourse, that could 
state fairly and fully what those doctrines are. 
Their views were entirely one-sided ; the truth 
was garbled to suit their convenience; and the 
creations of their ow T n fruitful fancy w T ere con- 
stantly being presented before the minds of the 
people, thereby deepening their prejudices, and 
drawing still closer the dark folds of their man- 
tle of ignorance and bigotry." (pp. 65, 66.) 

Again : "It is painful to witness the igno- 
rance and stupidity of men — their malignity 
and opposition to the truth — who have learned 
to misrepresent and abuse Calvinism with such 
bitterness of feeling, till, like a rattlesnake in 



22 CALVINISTIC DOCTRINE 

dog-days, they have become blinded by the 
poison of their own minds. " (p. 156.) 

In this attempt to destroy confidence in the 
veracity of Arminians, so far, at least, as it is 
connected with their representations of Calvin- 
ism, leading individuals are singled out for spe- 
cial animadversion. Dr. Miller assails the 
moral character of Arminius. He says of him 
that, "On first entering upon his professorship, 
he seemed to take much pains to remove from 
himself all suspicion of heterodoxy, by pub- 
licly maintaining theses in favor of the received 
doctrines; doctrines which he afterwards zea- 
lously contradicted. And that he did this con- 
trary to his own convictions at the time, was 
made abundantly evident afterwards by some of 
his own zealous friends. But, after he had 
been in his new office a year or two, it was dis- 
covered that it was his constant practice to de- 
liver one set of opinions in his professional 
chair, and a very different set by means of pri- 
vate confidential manuscripts circulated among 
his pupils. " {Synod of Dort, p. 13.) 

Dr. Fairchild speaks thus of a passage by 
Mr. Wesley : " In the doctrinal Tracts, p. 172, 
is an address to Satan, which we have no hesi- 



OF PREDESTINATION. 23 

tation in saying is fraught with the most con- 
centrated blasphemy ever proceeding from the 
tongue or pen of mortal, whether Jew, Pagan, 
or Infidel, and all imputed to the Calvinists. 
One cannot help wondering how such transcend- 
ent impieties ever found their way into the mind 
of man ; I am not willing to transfer the lan- 
guage to these pages ; but the work is doubtless 
accessible to most readers, having been sown 
broadcast over the land." (Great Supper ', p. 
150.) He also indorses the charge of forgery 
which Toplady made against Mr. Wesley. (See 

P . mo 

The late Dr. Fisk is charged with garbling 
the Confession of Faith for sinister purposes 
(p. Ill); and with " scandalous imputations" 
against Calvinism, (p. 150.) 

It is not impossible that our Calvinistic bre- 
thren should be misrepresented. Nor is it im- 
possible that they should misrepresent both 
themselves and others. I do not admit that 
they are thus misrepresented by their Method- 
ist opponents, but it is not my intention to re- 
fute these charges at this time. I refer to them 
now to justify the special caution which I shall 
observe in presenting their tenets. They make 



24 CALVINISTIC DOCTRINE 

it necessary for us to prove beyond the possi- 
bility of doubt that they hold the doctrines 
which we impute to them. I shall give their 
views in their own words. 

Calvin says, in his Institutes: "Whoever, 
then, desires to avoid this infidelity, let him 
constantly remember that, in the creatures, 
there is no erratic power, or action, or motion, 
but that they are so governed by the secret 
counsel of God, that nothing can happen but 
what is subject to his knowledge, and decreed 
hy his wilV 9 (Vol. i. p. 186.) 

Again: " All future things being uncertain 
to us, we hold them in suspense, as though they 
might happen either one way or another. Yet, 
this remains a fixed principle in our hearts, 
that there ivill be no event which Gfod has not 

ORDAINED." (lb. p. 193.) 

Again : " They consider it absurd that a man 
should be blinded by the will and command of 
God, and afterwards be punished for his blind- 
ness. They, therefore, evade this difficulty, by 
alleging that it happens only by the permission 
of God, and not by the will of God ; but God 
himself, by the most unequivocal declarations, 
rejects this subterfuge. That men, however, 



OF PREDESTINATION. 25 

can effect nothing but by the secret will of 
Grod, and can deliberate upon nothing but what 
he has previously decreed, and determines by 
his secret direction, is proved by express and 
innumerable testimonies.' ' (lb. p. 211.) 

Again : " If God simply foresaw the fates of 
men, and did not also dispose and fix them by 
his determination, there would be room to agi- 
tate the question, whether his providence or 
foresight rendered them at all necessary. But, 
since he foresees future events only in conse- 
quence of his decree that they shall happen, it 
is useless to contend about foreknowledge, while 
it is evident that all things come to pass rather 
by ordination and decree." (Vol. ii. p. 169.) 

Again: "I shall not hesitate, therefore, to 
confess plainly, with Augustine, ' that the will 
of God is the necessity of things, and that what 
he has willed will necessarily come to pass.'" 
(lb. p. 171.) 

Again: " With respect to his secret influ- 
ences, the declaration of Solomon concerning 
the heart of a king, that it is inclined hither 
or thither according to the Divine will, certainly 
extends to the whole human race, and is as 
much as though he had said, that whatever 
3 



26 CALVINISTIC DOCTRINE 

conceptions we form in our minds, they are 
directed by the secret inspiration of God." 
(lb. p. 213.) 

Finally, for the present: " What Grod de- 
crees" says this celebrated writer, "must ne- 
cessarily come to pass." (lb. p. 194.) 

I think it will not be said, by any one who 
has heard me attentively, that I either misre- 
present, or misunderstand, Calvin, when I im- 
pute to him the doctrine that God has purposed, 
decreed, determined, foreordained, predestin- 
ated whatsoever comes to pass, and that he in 
some way or other brings to pass whatever 
occurs. 

But it may be objected that we ought not to 
hold modern Calvinists responsible for all the 
doctrines of Calvin ; that they " no further in- 
dorse them than as they are incorporated into 
their acknowledged creeds. 57 To this we cor- 
dially assent. By this rule we will abide. 
What, then, is the language of the Westminster 
Confession of Faith, the established standard 
of orthodoxy in the American Presbyterian 
Churches ? The third chapter commences thus : 
" God, from all eternity, did, by the most wise 
and holy counsel of his own will, freely and un- 



OF PREDESTINATION. 27 

changeably ordain "whatsoever comes to pass" 
(p. 15) ; and, at the commencement of the fifth 
chapter, we read : " God, the great Creator of 
all things, doth uphold, direct, dispose, and go- 
vern all creatures, actions, and things, from the 
greatest even to the least, by his most wise and 
holy providence." 

Observe, he, according to this statement, not 
only upholds and governs all creatures, but 
directs and disposes all actions and things, from 
the greatest even to the least. 

The Larger Catechism says, in answer to the 
question, ."What are the decrees of God?" 
" God's decrees are the wise, free, and holy acts 
of the counsel of his will, whereby, from all 
eternity, he hath, for his own glory, unchange- 
ably foreordained ivhatsoever comes to pass in 
time, especially concerning angels and men." 

The Shorter Catechism answers the same 
question by these words : " The decrees of God 
are, his eternal purpose according to the counsel 
of his will, whereby, for his own glory, he hath 
foreordained whatsoever comes to pass." 

The next question in this Catechism is : " How 
doth God execute his decrees ? — Ans. God exe- 



28 CALVINISTIC DOCTKINE 

cuteth his decrees in the works of creation and 
providence. " 

In a work, entitled An Exposition of the Con- 
fession of Faith of the Westminster Assembly of 
Divines, by the Rev. Robert Shaw, published by 
the Presbyterian Board of Publication, and re- 
vised by the Committee of Publication, we find 
the following passages : " That God must have 
decreed all future things is a conclusion which 
flows necessarily from his foreknowledge, inde- 
pendence, and immutability.'' (p. 58.) 

Again : " The decrees of God relate to all 
future things without exception ; whatever is 
done in time was foreordained before the begin- 
ning of time." (p. 59.) 

Again : " If from all eternity he knew all 
things that come to pass, then from eternity he 
must have ordained them" (p. 60). Again : " The 
foreknowledge of God will necessarily infer a 
decree ; for God could not foreknow that things 
would be, unless he had decreed they should 
be." (p. 59.) 

In another publication of this Board, entitled 
Fisher s Catechism, we find the following ques- 
tions and answers : — 

" Q. What are the decrees of God? — Ans. 



OF PREDESTINATION. 29 

The decrees of God are his eternal purpose, 
according to the counsel of his will, whereby, 
for his own glory, he hath foreordained what- 
soever comes to pass." (p. 51.) 

" Q. Are all the decrees of God then un- 
changeable ? — Arts. Yes : from all eternity, he 
hath, for his own glory, unchangeably foreor- 
dained whatsoever comes to pass." (p. 53.) 

" Q. Does anything come to pass in time but 
what was decreed from eternity ? — Ans. No : 
for the very reason ivhy anything comes to pass 
in time, is because Grod decreed it." (p. 54.) 

U Q. Are things that are casual or accidental 
positively decreed?— Ans. .Yes." (lb.) 

"Q. What has the decree of God fixed with 
respect to man's continuance in this world? — 
Ans. It has immovably fixed the precise mo- 
ment of every one's life and death, with every 
particular circumstance thereof." (lb.) 

U Q. How does God execute his decrees? — 
Ans. God executes his decrees in the works of 
creation and providence." (p. 57.) 

U Q. What is it for God to execute his de- 
crees ? — Ans. It is to bring them to pass ; or 
give an actual being in time, to what he pur- 
posed from eternity." (lb.) 
3* 



30 CALVINISTIC DOCTKINE 

"Q. Does not God leave the execution of his 
decrees to second causes ? — Ans. Whatever use 
God may make of second causes, in the execution 
of his decrees, yet they are merely tools in his 
overruling hand, to bring about his glorious de- 
signs, and must do all his pleasure." (lb.) 

"Q. Are there not certain means by which 
the decrees of God are executed ? — Ans. Yes ; 
but these means are decreed as well as the end." 
(p. 52.) 

"Q. Is there an exact harmony or corre- 
spondence, between God's decree and the execu- 
tion of it ? — Ans. When the thing decreed is 
brought actually into being, it exactly corre- 
sponds to the idea or platform of it in the infi- 
nite mind of Gf-od." (p. 57.) 

"Q. Can none of the decrees of God be 
defeated or fail of execution? — Ans. By no 
means. 7 ' (lb.) 

U Q. Does God's governing providence in- 
clude in it his immediate concurrence with every 
action of the creature ? — Ans. Yes ; God not 
only efficaciously concurs in producing the 
action, as to the matter of it ; but likewise pre- 
determines the creature to such or such an 
action, and not to another, shutting up all other 



OF PBEDESTINATION. 31 

ways of acting ', and leaving that only open which 
he had determined to be done." (p. 67.) 

"Q. "Why are the decrees of God said to be 
absolute? — Ans. Because they depend upon no 
condition without God himself, but entirely and 
solely upon his own sovereign will and plea- 
sure.' 5 (p. 52.) . 

On page 67 he tells us that " the worst action 
that was ever committed, the crucifying of the 
Lord of glory, was ordered and directed by 
God." 

The Rev. Dr. Musgrave says, &c. : " In the 
former chapter, we endeavored to explain and 
prove the three following propositions : — 

" 1. That all things that come to pass in time, 
have been eternally and unchangeably foreor- 
dained, because most certainly foreknown to 
the infinitely perfect Jehovah." (p. 18.) 

The Rev. Dr. Boardman, of this city, in his 
discourses on the doctrine of election, not only 
quotes with approbation that part of the Con- 
fession of Faith which says, " God, from all 
eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel 
of his own will, freely and unchangeably ordain 
whatsoever comes to pass" (p. 49), but also 
says: "Some persons appear to think that the 



32 CALVINISTIC DOCTRINE 

Divine decrees are restricted to spiritual matters. 
This is so far from being a correct opinion, that 
the Scriptures represent all events, however 
trivial, as being embraced in those decrees.' ' 
In this connection, he also affirms "that the 
Divine decrees embrace not only ends but means, 
and that both in temporal and spiritual things, 
where an end is decreed, the means by which it 
is to be reached or accomplished are also de- 
creed." (pp. 56, 57.) 

Dr. Chalmers, in his discourse on Predesti- 
nation, says: " Let us not conceive that the 
agency of man can bring about one single iota 
of deviation from the plans and the purposes of 
Gf-od, or that he can be compelled to vary in a 
single case by the movement of any of those 
subordinate beings whom he hath himself 
created. There may be a diversity of opera- 
tions, but it is God who worketh all in all. Look 
at the resolute and independent man, and you 
then see the purposes of the human mind 
entered upon with decision, and followed up by 
vigorous and successful exertions. But these 
only make up one diversity of Grod's operations. 
The will of. man, active, and spontaneous, and 
fluctuating as it appears to be, is an instrument 



OF PKEDESTTNATIOST. 66 

in his hand — and he turns it at his pleasure — 
and he brings other instruments to act upon it — 
and he plies it "with all its excitements — and he 
measures the force and proportion of each of 
them — and every step of every individual re- 
ceives as determinate a character from the hand 
of Gfod, as every mile of a planet's orbit, or 
every gust of wind, or every wave of the sea, 
or every particle of flying dust, or every rivulet 
of flowing water. This power of God knows 
no exception. It is absolute and unlimited, and 
while it embraces the vast, it carries its resistless 
influence to all the minute and unnoticed diversi- 
ties of existence. It reigns and operates through 
all the secrecies of the inner man. It gives 
birth to every purpose. It gives impulse to every 
desire. It gives shape and color to every con- 
ception. It wields an entire ascendency over 
every attribute of the mind, and the will, and 
the fancy, and the understanding, with all the 
countless variety of their hidden and fugitive 
operations, are submitted to it." 

It may be supposed that while we have shown 
clearly and indubitably that the doctrine which 
we propose to examine and refute is held by 
Old School Presbyterians, it would be an act of 



34 OALVINISTIO DOCTRINE 

injustice upon our part, should we impute it to 
those of the New School. Many think that 
the New School have rejected the leading 
doctrines of Calvinism, as set forth in the Con- 
fession of Faith. This is a very erroneous 
impression. A writer in the Presbyterian 
Quarterly Review — a work recently originated 
and sustained by New School Presbyterians — re- 
marks as follows : " Whatever difficulties there 
may be in the philosophy of the fact, it is 
certain that the idea of Presbyterianism actuates 
itself theologically in Calvinism.' ' (Vol. i. No. 
I. p. 18.) 

Again : " So far as we are informed, there is 
not a minister of our body who does not love 
and cherish the Westminster Confession of 
Faith as the best human delineation of Biblical 
theology/' (p. 5.) 

Again: "After fifteen years, in the body 
with which we are connected, no man has 
moved to alter a tittle of the Confession of 
Faith." (p. 3.) 

Again : " As we love the Confession of Faith 
and the Catechisms, we shall stand ready to 
vindicate them from Arminian, Socinian, and 
infidel assaults on the one side, as well as Anti- 
nomian glosses on the other." (p. 10.) 



OF PREDESTINATION". 35 

Again: "We must then, if we would obey 
the voice of God's providence, teach our children 
the priceless glories of their faith" (p. 152). 
" Who tells them that the Westminster Con- 
fession of Faith is a model of noble writing?" 
(p. 153.) 

The Westminster Confession of Faith, with 
the Catechisms, has recently been republished 
by the authority of the New School General 
Assembly, as the creed of their Church. Had 
they made any material changes in their creed, 
so far as Calvinism is concerned, this would 
have been the time to manifest them. But the 
New School Confession of Faith is a mere re- 
print of that of the Old School. 

The Rev. Albert Barnes, in a sermon in be- 
half of the American Home Missionary Society, 
preached in New York and in Philadelphia, says 
of that institution: "It cannot be denied, it 
need not be denied, that the form of Christianity 
which it seeks and expects to propagate, is that 
which has been much spoken against in the 
world, and known as the Calvinistic form, and 
that it expects to make its way because there 
are minds in every community that are likely 
to embrace Christianity in that form, because 



36 CALVINISTIC DOCTRINE 

it is presumed that the more mind is elevated, 
and cultivated, and brought into connection with 
schools and colleges, the more likely it will be to 
embrace that form." (p. 38.) 

Again, in a sermon preached before the New 
School General Assembly, May 20, 1852, he 
commences a paragraph with these words : " The 
Calvinistic denomination of Christians, of which 
we are a part" (p. 12). Again, he says : " As 
this form of Christianity is represented in the 
great denominational family to which we be- 
long, it combines two things — the Presbyterian 
form of government, and the Calvinistic or 
Augustinian type of doctrine." (Ih.) 

This "eminent writer, whom I hold in very 
high esteem for his learning, intelligence, and 
piety, notwithstanding his Calvinism, expresses 
his views of the Divine decrees in these words : — 

"But on this point, the entire movement of 
the world bears the marks of being conducted 
according to a plan. We defy a man to lay his 
finger on a fact which has not such a relation to 
other facts as to show that it is a part of a 
scheme ; and if of a scheme, then of a purpose 
formed beforehand." (Introd. to Butler's Ana- 
logy, p. 53.) 



OF PREDESTINATION'. 37 

Again : " The event which was thus fore- 
known, must have been, for some cause, certain 
and fixed, since an uncertain event could not 
possibly be foreknown. To talk of foreknowing 
a contingent event as certain, which may or may 
not exist, is an absurdity." [Notes on Romans, 
viii. 29.) 

Again: "We interpret the decrees of God, 
so far as we can do it, by facts ; and we say that 
the actual result, by whatever means brought 
about, is the expression of the design of God." 
(Introd. to Butlers Analogy, p. 43.) 

The Saybrook Platform and Confession of 
Faith, which contains the faith of the New 
England Congregationalists, holds precisely the 
same language respecting the Divine decrees, 
with the Confession of Faith of the Presbyterian 
Churches. 

I am in possession of a work entitled A Con- 
fession of Faith put forth by the Elders and 
Brethren of many Congregations of Christians 
{baptized upon profession of their faith) in 
London and the country ; adopted by the Baptist 
Association, met at Philadelphia, September 25, 
1752. The chapters in this Confession which 
relate to " God's decree" and "Providence," 
4 



88 CALVINISTIC DOCTRINE 

are, with very slight variations of phraseology, 
not affecting the sense, the same with those in 
the Westminster Confession of Faith, and the 
Saybrook Platform. It is thoroughly Calvin- 
istic. 

The Baptist Catechism, published by the 
American Baptist Publication Society, contains 
the following question and answer: — 

" Q. What are the decrees of God? — Ans. 
The decrees of God are his eternal purposes, 
according to the counsel of his will, whereby, 
for his own glory, he hath foreordained what- 
soever comes to pass." 

The Confession of Faith of the Dutch Re- 
formed Church says: " We believe that the same 
God, after he had created all things, did not 
forsake them or give them up to fortune or 
chance, but that he rules and governs them ac- 
cording to his holy will, so that nothing happens 
in this world without his appointment." Again : 
" This doctrine affords us unspeakable consola- 
tion, since we are taught thereby, that nothing 
can befall us by chance, but by the direction of 
our most gracious and Heavenly Father. ' ' Mark, 
according to this, nothings happens but with 
the appointment and by the direction of our 
Heavenly Father. 



OF PREDESTINATION. 39 

My hearers will, by this time, be fully con- 
vinced that I have not misstated the Calvinistic 
doctrine of Divine predestination. 

The application of this doctrine to the final 
destinies of men and angels constitutes the 
Calvinistic doctrine of election and reprobation. 
Upon this point, Calvin says : — 

"Predestination we call the eternal decree of 
God, by which he has determined in himself what 
he would have become of every individual of 
mankind. For they are not all created with a 
similar destiny, but eternal life is foreordained 
for some, and eternal damnation for others. 
Every man therefore being created for one or the 
other of these ends, we say he is predestinated 
either to eternal life or death. (Vol. ii. p. 145.) 

Again: " Observe ; all things being at God's 
disposal, and the decision of salvation or death 
belonging to him, he orders all things by his 
counsel and decree in such a manner, that some 
men are born devoted from the womb to certain 
death, that his name may be glorified in their 
destruction.' ' {lb. 169.) 

Again : " I inquire, again, how it came to pass 
that the fall of Adam, independent of any re- 
medy, should involve so many nations with their 
infant children in eternal death, but because 



40 OALYINISTIC DOCTRINE 

such was the will of Grod. Their tongues, so 
loquacious on every other point, must here be 
struck dumb. It is an awful decree, I confess ; 
but no one can deny that God foreknew the 
future final fate of man before he created him, 
and that he did foreknow it because it was ap- 
pointed by his own decree" {lb. 170.) 

Upon this point, the Presbyterian Confession 
of Faith, the Saybrooh Platform, and the Bap- 
tist Confession of Faith, hold the following lan- 
guage :— 

" By the decree of God for the manifestation 
of his glory, some men and angels are predesti- 
nated to everlasting life, and others foreordained 
to everlasting death. 

" Those angels and men, thus predestinated 
and foreordained, are particularly and unchange- 
ably designed ; and their number is so certain 
and definite, that it cannot be either increased 
or diminished. 

" Those of mankind that are predestinated 
unto life, God, before the foundation of the world 
was laid, according to his eternal and immutable 
purpose, and the secret counsel and good plea- 
sure of his will, hath chosen in Christ, unto 
everlasting glory, out of his mere free grace and 



OF PEEDESTINATION. 41 

love, without any foresight of faith or good 
works, or perseverance in either of them, or any 
other thing in the creature, as conditions or 
causes moving him thereunto, and all unto the 
praise of his glorious grace. " 

I do not say that Calvinists never contradict 
any of these statements. Nor do I profess to 
have spread out the entire theory of Calvinism. 
The question now relates to their doctrine of 
Divine decrees. 

I am fully convinced that the times demand 
a review and comparison of the two opposing 
systems, Calvinism and Arminianism. Our 
Calvinistic brethren, both Old and New School, 
are putting forth high claims in behalf of their 
system, and speaking of ours in very disparag- 
ing terms. 

The Rev. Albert Barnes tells us, in his ser- 
mon in behalf of the Home Missionary Society, 
preached in 1849, that the more mind is ele- 
vated, and cultivated, and brought into connec- 
tion with colleges and schools, the more likely 
it will be to embrace the Calvinistic form of 
Christianity. He thinks that Calvinists will be 
increased just in proportion as schools and col- 
leges can be founded, and an intelligent and 
4* 



42 CALVINISTIC DOCTKINE 

educated ministry sent out. He does not sup- 
pose that the entire mind of the west will em- 
brace Calvinistic views, but he does " expect 
that a considerable portion of the educated and 
ruling mind will" (p. 40). He tells us, in his 
sermon delivered before the New School Gene- 
ral Assembly, convened in Washington in 1852, 
that past history has shown that the class of 
minds most likely to embrace the Calvinistic 
system " is most likely to be found among the 
thinking, the sober, the educated, the firm, the 
conservative, and the free" (p. 10); that "the 
Calvinistic system identifies itself with educa- 
tion, and a large portion of the cultivated mind 
of a community will be always imbued with the 
sentiments of the system." (p. 15.) 

This seems to imply, whatever may be in- 
tended, that Arminianism has special affinities 
for ignorance ; that it is more indebted to igno- 
rance than to intelligence for its diffusion ; that 
its chances for success will be diminished in 
proportion as sound education advances, and 
the ministry becomes intelligent. If this be so, 
Arminians are pursuing a suicidal policy ; for 
no Christian denomination has established as 
many colleges and academies in the same 



OF PREDESTINATION. 43 

length of time as the Methodists. That Ar- 
minianism takes better than Calvinism with the 
masses is undeniable ; but this may be because 
it possesses a superior adaptation to the wants 
of humanity. Our Saviour gave it as a dis- 
tinctive mark of the ushering in of the last 
dispensation that the poor have the gospel 
preached unto them, -which implies that the 
poor, and consequently the uneducated, may 
understand it. 

Mr. Barnes goes further. He intimates that 
the different theological systems are " the re- 
sult of some original peculiarity in certain 
classes of minds;" that "there are minds, not a 
few in number, or unimportant in character, 
which, when converted, will naturally embrace 
Calvinism. " He " will not undertake to say 
whether John Wesley could have been a Cal- 
vinist, but he can say that Jonathan Edwards 
could never have been anything else." He re- 
peats this sentiment three years after, in these 
words : " There are minds, indeed, and those 
in many respects of a high order, that will not 
[mark the phraseology !] see the truth of the 
Calvinistic system ; but there are minds that 
can never see the truth of an opposite system. 



44 CALVINISTIC DOCTKINE 

We could not perhaps undertake to say whether 
John Wesley could ever have been a Calvinist, 
but we can say that Jonathan Edwards could 
never have been anything else ; and if there be 
a mind in any community formed like that of 
Edwards, we anticipate that it will embrace the 
same great system which he defended." 

Now it is inconceivable that Mr. Barnes 
should consider the Arminian superior or equal 
to the Calvinistic mind. That must be the best 
mental structure which is most in harmony with 
the best theory. The tenor of his remarks in- 
dicates clearly his opinion upon this point. 

I can hardly express the astonishment which 
I felt upon reading this strange sentiment from 
so justly distinguished a writer. It appeared 
to me to be grossly unphilosophical, implying 
either that truth is not homogeneous ; that con- 
tradictory propositions may be equally true ; or 
that God has constituted some minds falsely. 
It is presumable that between truth and mind, 
in its original normal condition — mind not per- 
verted by erroneous education, or prejudice, or 
passion, or depravity in any form — there will 
be a strict congeniality, so that truth will be 
preferred to error. But this doctrine implies 



OF PREDESTINATION. 45 

that one set of minds will, under the same cir- 
cumstances, from their peculiar natural consti- 
tution, prefer the truth, and another set reject 
it. It is obviously of very dangerous practical 
tendency. While the Calvinist may refer to 
it to account for his being a Calvinist, and the 
Arminian to account for his being an Arminian, 
the infidel may claim that it is from the same 
cause that he is an infidel. His rejecting the 
Bible is the natural inevitable result of the 
peculiar mental constitution which God gave 
him. 

Mr. Barnes tells us that Calvinism does not 
appeal to passion ; but, if I am not very greatly 
mistaken, and you may judge whether I am or 
not, its advocates appeal very significantly to 
pride of intellect. It offers gross flattery as 
the price of adhesion and support. What else 
can be inferred from the passages which I have 
quoted, than that by becoming Calvinists you 
will class yourselves with minds of a superior 
structure, and with the educated and cultivated, 
and will occupy an elevation from which you 
can look down upon the less favored Arminians ? 

A writer in the New School Quarterly Review 
has this remark: " Our physical frame could 



46 CALVINISTIC DOCTRINE 

about as well be erect, and adapted for its pur- 
poses without a back-bone, as piety be complete 
without Calvinism.' ' (Vol.. i. No. I. p. 19.) 

The Rev. Mr. Lowry, in his Search for Truth, 
claims that "the doctrine of human depravity — 
the complete ruin of man — the justice of his 
condemnation — the legal or covenant relation of 
Adam and his posterity — the necessity of an 
atonement — and its vicarious nature/' " belong 
exclusively to the Calvinistic system.' ' He 
admits that the " Arminian often makes use of 
the same phraseology as the Calvinist," but 
then he rejects the "proper and scriptural 
sense." " The Arminian," he says, " attempts 
to connect with his system the doctrine of a 
vicarious atonement, because the phrase is a 
popular one, and he cannot well do without it ; 
but when we come to examine its meaning, we 
find that he has no claim to it whatever. He may 
hold on to the name, but nothing more. The 
substance is as different from the view which 
forms a part of his creed, as a city on the At- 
lantic coast differs from a small village in the 
backwoods." (pp. 55, 56.) 

Again : " The principles which lie at the 
foundation of the Arminian doctrine of ability 



OF PREDESTINATION. 47 

and grace, are not only calculated to destroy 
the energies of the Church, and unhinge the 
institutions of society, as I have endeavored to 
show, but they go still further ; they enter the 
Christian's closet, and destroy the life and soul 
of his private devotions. They are calculated 
to dry up every fountain, and destroy every 
spring of religious feeling and action." (p. 86.) 

Again : " Arminians are without any con- 
sistent and harmonious system of doctrine. It 
is true that, on speaking of the doctrines of 
those who hold to Arminian sentiments, we are 
in the habit of using the word system, but it is 
only as a matter of convenience and courtesy. 
Some of those doctrines may sustain a logical 
connection with others — such as the doctrine of 
falling from grace, and the denial of divine 
efficiency in conversion and sanctification — but 
Arminianism, as a whole, is a coat of many 
colors, that has been patched and pieced since 
the days of Pelagius, according to the taste 
and caprice of the man that wears it." (p. 156.) 

Again : " It requires but half an eye to see, 
that the view of the fall of man and the relation 
we sustain to Adam, as found in the standards 
of the Methodist Church, vitiate the whole 



48 CALVINISTIC DOCTEINE 

Gospel scheme ; that the principles growing out 
of the view there presented, lead to fundamental 
error with regard to the nature of virtue and 
vice, and destroy all human accountability ; that 
the nature of the remedy found in the same 
standards necessarily destroys all motive to in- 
telligent action and labor upon the part of the 
Church in the great work before her, holds out 
no encouragement to prayer ; degrades the cha- 
racter of God to that of a debtor and apologist 
for injuries he has done to the creature ; and 
exalts the creature to heaven by a kind of semi- 
omnipotence of his own. Such consequences as 
these I say are dangerous and ruinous." (p. 
157.) 

This book derives its importance from its 
being adopted by the Presbyterian Board of 
Publication, and its bearing the imprimatur of 
that institution. It is commended by their ca- 
talogue as " well worthy of perusal by those 
who have doubts as to the scriptural character 
of those doctrines which ignorance and preju- 
dice brand as ' the horrible dogmas of Calvin- 
ism.' " It was published in 1852. 

A writer in the Presbyterian, of June 25, 
1853, thus expresses his views of Arminianism : 



OF PREDESTINATION". 49 

" Did we preach Arminianism to the people, we 
could get ten into our churches where we now 
get one ; for it must be remembered that Ar- 
minianism is far more palatable to depraved 
nature than Calvinism." Again: " These bre- 
thren go too fast, get men into the visible king- 
dom too soon ; lull them to everlasting sleep by 
their soporific measures and doctrinal anodynes, 
thereby breaking down the barriers which sepa- 
rate the Church from the world, and ruining 
hundreds of souls where they save one. Let 
our young men be made to feel rather that Ar- 
minianism is a dangerous delusion wherever it 
is preached, and uphold with all their might 
and main real old-fashioned Calvinism.' ' 

It is a very common thing with Calvinists to 
refer opposition to Calvinism to depravity, as 
its source. The Presbyterian Banner, for Nov. 
5, 1853, contains the following : " The natural 
heart recoils from predestination. The ungodly 
hate it. Our whole system is too humbling to 
human pride to find friends even among the 
vicious. This is to us a strong affirmation of its 
truth," 

They also claim for Calvinism that it is not 
only specially conducive to civil and religious 
<5 



50 CALVINISTIC DOCTRINE, ETC. 

liberty, but that it is essential thereto. The 
-Rev. Dr. Wilson, of the New School Presbyte- 
rian Church, in an address delivered before the 
literary societies of Delaware College, in 1852, 
went out of his way to eulogize Calvinism in 
these terms : " Calvinism and human liberty 
flourish side by side, or rather the latter is not 
found without the former; and nowhere at this 
hour is there true freedom, true independence 
of opinion in Church or State where Calvinism 
is not the foundation.' ' Calvinists must be very 
forgetful of their history, or they must suppose 
that all others are ignorant or forgetful of it. 
But it is not my intention, at present, to reply 
to this extravagant pretension. 

I do not object to the publication of these 
views from the pulpit and the press. If our 
brethren entertain them, they have a right to 
publish them. It is manly to do so. But it 
may be obligatory upon us to stand up for what 
we believe to be the truth, and to oppose what 
we believe to be error. I shall endeavor to do 
so, the Lord being my helper. 



DISCOURSE II. 



" In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being 
predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh 
all things after the counsel of his own will." — Eph. i. 11. 

In the preceding discourse, I called attention 
to the fact that the opponents of Calvinism 
are frequently charged with misunderstanding 
through ignorance, or grossly misrepresenting 
it. I read passages from several, charging us 
with calumny, defamation, slander, and even 
blasphemy. 

In view of these charges, often made and re- 
iterated, and widely spread, with high official 
sanction, and likely to be repeated whenever 
Calvinism is boldly investigated, I deemed it 
necessary to show, by numerous quotations, that 
I do not misrepresent it when I impute to it 
the doctrine that God has willed, proposed, 
and decreed whatsoever comes to pass, and 



52 CALYINISTIC DOCTEINE 

that, in some way or other, he brings to pass 
whatever occurs. For this purpose, I referred 
to the acknowledged publications of the Pres- 
byterian, Congregational, Baptist, and Reform- 
ed Dutch Churches. I noted, particularly, that 
this doctrine is held by the New School Presby- 
terians, because it is supposed by many that 
they have abandoned it, and that their rejection 
of it constitutes one of the points of difference 
between them and the Old School. 

I also quoted largely to show that earnest 
efforts are in progress to exalt Calvinism, and 
disparage Arminianism and Arminians. 

We now propose to test this dogma of Cal- 
vinism by reason and Scripture. We shall not, 
at present, enter upon the examination of the 
proof-texts, though we hold the Holy Scrip- 
tures to be the ultimate authority on alUtheo- 
logical questions, but shall compare it with ac- 
knowledged Scripture principles. And, yet, it 
may be very reasonably expected that some at- 
tention will be paid to the passage which, ac- 
cording to custom, has been selected as present- 
ing the subject of discourse. It is the very 
first 'proof-text adduced by the Westminster 
Confession of Faith, but it fails to meet the 



OF PREDESTINATION. 53 

demand made upon it. It does not contain the 
doctrine sought to be proved. It does, indeed, 
assert the predestination of believers to certain 
blessings, a point not in dispute, and also that 
they are predestinated to these blessings accord- 
ing to God's purpose; but all this is very far 
from teaching that Grod lias foreordained what- 
soever comes to pass. The proof is supposed by 
some to be contained in the remaining portion 
of the passage — "who worketh all things," &c. 
But we must take the entire expression of the 
apostle in order to get his meaning, " who work- 
eth all things after the counsel of his own will." 
By this he means to say, merely, that, in what- 
ever God does towards men or angels, he is uncon- 
trolled. He carries out his own free purposes. 
He does not conform to the counsels of others. 
He does not yield to the clamors of discontented 
subjects, or make concessions to contemporary 
and independent powers. The words are thus 
paraphrased by McKnight, a Calvinistic com- 
mentator : " According to the gracious purpose 
of him, w T ho effectually accomplisheth all his be- 
nevolent intentions, by the most proper means, 
according to the wise determination of his own 
will." We may, with as much propriety, argue 
5* 



54 CALVINISTIC DOCTRINE 

from the apostolic injunction, " Do all tilings 
without murmurings and disputings" (Phil. ji. 
14), that Christians are required by the law of 
God to do all things absolutely, as, from the 
clause under consideration, that God has de- 
creed and executes whatsoever comes to pass. * 
But, if our brethren insist upon so understand- 
ing the apostle, we shall hold them to their 
interpretation. We shall not allow them to 
contradict it whenever the exigencies of the 
argument may render it convenient. 

1. In the first place, this theory of predes- 
tination is inconsistent with the doctrine of 
man's free moral agency. The force of this 
objection is readily perceived. It is impossible 
that we should be free agents, when all the 
external circumstances that affect us, and all 
our mental and bodily acts, are predetermined 
and brought about by God. Man is thus re- 
duced to a mere passive instrument. He is 
nothing more than a complicate and curious 
machine — • a man-machine, an automaton — 
whose every movement is conceived, determined, 
directed, controlled by a supervisor. It avails 
nothing to apply to him terms which signify 
freedom. We may say that he has the power to 



OF PKEDESTINATIOlSr. 55 

will; that he actually wills; but the difficulty- 
is not relieved. The being who endowed him 
with this faculty has foreordained and brings to 
pass, by a well-directed agency, every move- 
ment of that faculty. We may say that he 
wills according to Ms inclinations, and is there- 
fore free; but God has decreed and brings to 
pass all his inclinations. We may say that he 
acts according to his will, and not against his 
will ; still nothing is gained, since all his pur- 
poses, and the movements by which he executes 
them, are equally preordained and brought to 
pass by God. We may say that he is conscious 
of acting freely, but this is a mere delusion, if 
the doctrine we are considering be true. By 
the very logic which reconciles it with free 
agency in man, I will undertake to prove that 
every steamboat and every railroad-engine is a 
free agent. Calvinistic free agency must be 
something analogous to Bishop Hughes's freedom 
of conscience, indestructible and inviolable, in 
its very nature and essence ; so that a man may 
be denied the privilege of reading the Bible, or 
of propagating or entertaining any opinions 
contrary to the Church of Rome — he may be 
thrown into prison, and put to torture, for re- 



56 CALVINTSTIC DOCTRINE 

fusing to subscribe to its dogmas, or to worship 
according to forms which he holds to be idola- 
trous — and yet he enjoys freedom of conscience. 
So, according to the teachings of modern Cal- 
vinism, man is a free agent, notwithstanding all 
the circumstances which surround him, with all 
his sensations, emotions, desires, purposes, voli- 
tions and acts were decreed from eternity, and 
brought to pass by a power which he can neither 
control nor resist This free agency must then 
be something absolutely inviolable in its nature 
and essence, something which God himself can- 
not destroy or impinge except by terminating 
the existence of the being in whom it inheres. 
As Bishop Hughes's freedom of conscience is 
very different from what is generally understood 
to be freedom of conscience, so the free agency 
which may be made to harmonize with this doc- 
trine, is different from what is usually under- 
stood to be free agency. It is not the power to 
act otherwise than as we do act, or to choose or 
will otherwise than as we do choose or will. 

2. This doctrine, being at variance with man's 
free agency, is, by necessary consequence, at 
variance with his moral accountability. There 
would be as much reason in holding the atmo- 



OF PREDESTINATION. 57 

sphere accountable, or the trees, or the grass, or 
the clods, or the stones. All his views, feelings, 
and volitions, being thus predetermined, he can 
no more be accountable for them than for the 
circumstances of his birth, or the natural color 
of his shin. He cannot reasonably be made 
the subject of commendation or censure — of re- 
ward or punishment. 

3. It also follows, from this doctrine, that 
there is not, and cannot be any such thing as 
sin. If man be not a free agent — if he be in- 
capable of acting otherwise than as predeter- 
mined by Jehovah — he is incapable of either 
virtue or vice. It would be as reasonable to 
predicate virtue or vice of the flux and reflux of 
the tides, or the circulation of the blood, as of 
man or angel under such circumstances. 

And, mark ! if we, for the sake of the argu- 
ment, should admit that man is capable of virtue, 
notwithstanding all his acts are foreordained 
and rendered infallibly certain by a power which 
he cannot successfully resist, he is still incapable 
of vice. He cannot sin, for this plain, all- 
sufficient reason — he cannot act otherwise than 
according to the will of Grod. " Nothing comes 
to pass in time but what was decreed from 



58 CALVINISTIC DOCTKINE 

eternity." "None of the decrees of God can 
be defeated or fail of execution." So Calvin- 
ism explicitly affirms. 

Further, while the inference that there is and 
can be no sin is fairly deducible from the sup- 
position that man is not a free agent, it does not 
depend upon that supposition. Let it be ad- 
mitted, for the purpose of the argument, that 
man is a free agent, and capable of sinning, 
notwithstanding all his actions were predeter- 
mined, and what is the state of the case? Still 
he has not sinned. He has done nothing but 
what God freely willed and ordained he should 
do. The perfect obedience of Christ consisted 
in his doing in all respects the will of the Father. 
Either, then, it may be sinful to do the will of 
God, or there is — there can be no sin. I do 
not know of any way in which this consequence 
can be avoided. I do not believe that it can. 

Let us take another view of this point. Let 
the advocates of this doctrine succeed in proving 
that man is a free agent, in the proper sense of 
the term, and capable of sinning, notwithstand- 
ing all his actions are decreed and brought to 
pass by God, and we have before us this re- 
markable result: Every individual of the human 



OF PKEDESTINATION. 59 

race, while in a state of probation, without a 
knowledge of Gfod's predetermination respecting 
him, and without any controlling influence 
brought to bear upon him, has, in every instance, 
willed and acted in accordance with the will of 
God. The result is universal voluntary holi- 
ness. Here, then, is a dilemma. Either there is 
no possibility of sin or of holiness, or, if there be 
a possibility of sin or of holiness, there is, in fact, 
no sin — there is, in fact, universal holiness. 

4. If it be asserted that sin exists, notwith- 
standing this perfect coincidence between the 
will of God and the conduct of his creatures, it 
will follow, most conclusively, that Gf-od is the 
author of sin. He has decreed and brings to 
pass all the sensations, perceptions, emotions, 
inclinations, volitions, and overt actions, of the 
whole human race. Various attempts have been 
made to avoid this result, but they are all futile. 
The Confession of Faith says : "God, from all 
eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel 
of his own will, freely and unchangeably ordain 
whatsoever comes to pass; yet so as thereby 
neither is God the author of sin." We pay all 
respect to this as a disclaimer. Our Presbyte- 
rian brethren do not intend to charge God with 



60 CALVINISTIC DOCTRINE 

being the author of sin. But we are compelled 
to regard these propositions as directly contra- 
dictory to each other. Is not a being the author 
of that which he originally designs and decrees, 
and subsequently brings into existence ? and is 
it not maintained that he decreed from all eter- 
nity, and brings to pass whatever occurs ? Either 
sin has not come to pass, or God is the author 
of it. It is useless to say that God has brought 
to pass the act, but not the sinfulness. The 
sinfulness has come to pass. It is useless to say 
that sin is man's, and not God's act. Man does 
nothing but what God has decreed, and, in some 
infallible way leads him to do. " God's power," 
says Dr. Chalmers, "gives birth to every pur- 
pose; it gives impulse to every desire, gives shape 
and color to every conception." Says Fisher, 
in his Catechism: "God not only efficaciously 
concurs in producing the action as to the matter 
of it, but likewise predetermines the creature to 
such or such an action, and not to another, 
shutting up all other ways of acting, and leaving 
only that open which he had determined to be 
done." We might, with vastly more plausibility, 
deny that Paul was the author of his Epistles, 
because he employed an amanuensis, or, for the 



OF PREDESTINATION. 61 

same reason, deny that Milton was the author 
of Paradise Lost. It is useless here to specu- 
late upon the reasons which induced God to or- 
dain and bring sin to pass. We are now con- 
cerned with the fact merely, and we hence 
conclude that he is the author of sin and the 
only being properly answerable for it. 

5. If the advocates of this doctrine should 
still insist that it does not make God the author 
of sin ; that man is a free agent, and properly 
responsible for his actions, notwithstanding they 
are foreordained ; I press them with this plain 
consequence — God is, to say the least, a parti- 
cipant in the sinning. And he is not merely a 
coadjutor, but the principal — the principal in 
every instance of sinning. He originates the 
first conception of the sinning act. He forms 
the plan. He arranges all the circumstances. 
He, by his providence, applies the influence by 
which the result is effectuated. Here, then, is 
a dilemma from which there is no escape. Either 
God is, strictly and properly, the author of sin, 
or he is a participant therein, and not merely 
accessory, but iheprineipal, the plotter, the prime 
mover, the ringleader thereof. 

6. Another inevitable consequence of this 

6 



62 CALVINISTIC DOCTBINE 

doctrine is that, admitting the existence of sin, 
God prefers sin to holiness in every instance 
in which sin takes place. This consequence is 
too plain to require much illustration. If God 
freely ordained whatsoever comes to pass; if he 
was not under a fatal necessity of ordaining just 
as he did; if he had it in his power to ordain 
otherwise, he could have ordained holiness in 
the place of sin. The fact that he was free and 
unnecessitated in his decrees, and could ordain 
the one or the other, according to his good 
pleasure, is proof substantial that he prefers 
sin to holiness in every instance in which sin 
occurs. Had he preferred holiness, he could 
have decreed it, and it would have come to pass. 
This consequence has been admitted, and is, by 
many Calvinists at this day, maintained as a 
doctrine. In fact, it has been a matter of dis- 
pute amongst Calvinists — Dr. Taylor, of Con- 
necticut, taking one side, and Dr. Tyler, of 
Connecticut, taking the other. But what a 
shocking conception! (See Christian Spectator, 
vol. iv. p. 465.) 

7. Nor can we resist the further conclusion, 
from these premises, that sin is not a real evil, 
but, on the contrary, a good, and that in every 



OF PKEDESTINATIOK. 63 

instance in which it is preferred to holiness, it 
is worthy of such preference. This reasoning 
proceeds upon the assumption that God is a being 
of infinite goodness and wisdom, and, therefore, 
always prefers good to evil, being, of course, 
always able to distinguish the one from the other. 

This inference also has been admitted by many 
of the advocates of Calvinistic predestination. 
They distinctly affirm that sin is the necessary 
means of the greatest good, and, as such, so far 
as it exists, is preferable on the whole to holi- 
ness in its stead — that its existence is, on the 
whole, for the best. I give as authority for this 
affirmation, a publication of the Presbyterian 
Board, entitled Old and New Theology. On 
the first page we find this explicit statement: 
" It has been a common sentiment among New 
England divines, since the time of Edwards, that 
sin is the necessary means of the greatest good, 
and as such, so far as it exists, is preferable, on 
the whole, to holiness in its stead." 

I do not charge Dr. Musgrave with holding 
this inference as a doctrine, and yet it is very 
clearly asserted in an argument designed to 
prove the Calvinistic doctrine of foreordination. 
" There must," says he, "have been a time 



64 CALVINISTIC DOCTRINE 

when no creature existed, as God alone is from 
everlasting. Before creation, and from all 
eternity, all things that are possible, as well as 
all things that actually have or will come to pass 
in time, must have been perfectly known to God. 
He must, therefore, have known what beings 
and events would, on the whole, be most for his 
own glory, and the greatest good of the uni- 
verse ; and therefore, as an infinitely wise, be- 
nevolent, and Almighty Being, he could not but 
have chosen or determined, that such beings and 
events, and such only, should come to pass in 
time/' "Th6 conclusion is, therefore, to our 
minds, irresistible, that if God be infinitely wise, 
benevolent, and powerful, and perfectly fore- 
knew what beings and events would, on the 
whole, be best, he must have chosen and or- 
dained that they should exist, or be permitted 
to occur; and that, consequently, everything 
that does actually come to pass in time, has been 
eternally and unchangeably foreordained." 

Here it is argued that God, as an infinitely 
wise, benevolent, and powerful being, must have 
known and preferred, and decreed, that just such 
beings should exist and events occur, as would, 
on the whole, be most for his own glory, and the 



OF PREDESTINATION. 65 

greatest good of the universe, and such only ; 
and that, consequently, he has eternally, and 
unchangeably foreordained everything that does 
actually come to pass in time. Now it is plain 
that all the events which have come to pass in 
time must answer this description — must be for 
the best, for his highest glory — or the argument 
falls to the ground. 

The Rev. Jas. McChain, one of the editors 
of the Calvinistic Magazine, in a discourse pub- 
lished in that periodical, December, 1847, thus 
undertakes to prove that God "has foreordained 
whatsoever comes to pass:" " Jehovah is infin- 
itely wise; does he not, therefore, know what it is 
best should take place? He is infinitely benevo- 
lent; will he not choose, then, that shall take place 
which he knows is for the best ? He is infinitely 
powerful; can he not, therefore, cause to take 
place what he chooses shall take place? The 
Most High is infinitely wise, and knoivs what it 
is best should come to pass — benevolent, and 
chooses to bring to pass what is best — powerful, 
and does bring to pass what he chooses as best." 
"Surely his infinite wisdom and goodness will 
choose and determine whatsoever it is best should 
6* 



66 CALVINISTIC DOCTEINE 

take place, and his almighty power will perfectly 
carry out his plan." 

It is not my intention, at this time, to point 
out the fallacy of these arguments. I quote 
them to show that the consequence which I have 
deduced from the doctrine that God has decreed 
whatsoever comes to pass — that sin is not an 
evil, but a good, and w T orthy of being preferred 
to holiness in every instance in which it occurs 
— is actually recognized as a truth, and used as 
a premise in proof of the Calvinistic doctrine of 
the decrees. 

8. And how can we avoid adopting as a le- 
gitimate conclusion, the licentious infidel maxim, 
that "whatever is, is right"? 

9. It is obvious, at the first glance, that this 
doctrine destroys all reasonable ground for re- 
pentance. Of what shall we repent ? Of sin- 
ning ? Let it first be proved that, according to 
this doctrine, any one has sinned, or can sin. 
But, if sin be possible, yet in every instance of 
sinning we have done the will of God. He 
freely and unchangeably predestinated the act 
from all eternity. His providence brought it to 
pass. Before w T e feel ourselves authorized to 
repent we should be sure that God has repented 



OF PREDESTINATION. 67 

of his purposes and acts. And, even then, 
there would be no good reason for repentance 
upon the part of his creatures. For, if we, for 
the sake of the argument, allow that they are 
able to act otherwise than as they do, notwith- 
standing the Divine decrees, they are morally 
bound to submit cordially to those decrees, 
leaving to God the responsibility of decreeing 
wisely. Hence there is no room for repentance. 
This is precisely the application made of this 
doctrine by an intelligent Calvinistic lady of 
New England, Mrs. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, 
daughter of the late Prof. Stuart, of Andover, 
and authoress of certain very popular works. 
In the memorial of her, prefixed to The Last 
Leaf of Sunny Side, she is quoted as saying in 
her diary: " I never could understand or divine 
before, my claim upon the Deity's overruling 
care. Now I do get a glimpse of it — enough 
to make me feel like an infant in its mother's 
arms. Every event, of every day, of every 
hour, is unalterably fixed. Each day is but the 
turning over a new leaf of my history, already 
written by the finger of God — every leiter of 
it. Should I wish to re-write — to alter — one ? 
Oh, no! no!! no!!!" Here, you perceive, is 



68 CALVINISTIC DOCTRINE 

no ground for repentance. It is repudiated. 
She would not alter an event of her life, a letter 
of her history. She carries this acquiescence 
in the Divine decrees so far as to say in another 
place: "I have no hope but in my Saviour; 
and if He has not saved me, then this too, I 
know, is just, and God's decrees I would not 
change. " 

10. Nor can prayer be more reasonable than 
repentance. For what shall we pray ? That 
God would reverse his eternal decrees ? This 
w r ould be to reflect upon his attributes. Are 
his decrees wrong ? Besides, the doctrine in 
question affirms them to be unchangeable. Shall 
we pray that God may accomplish them ? This 
can add nothing to the certainty of their accom- 
plishment ; for they cannot be defeated. So 
we are distinctly assured by the advocates of 
this theory. The only apology that can be 
offered for prayer, on the part of those who 
believe this doctrine, is that it is decreed they 
shall pray. But a prayer offered in strict 
logical accordance with this theory would be a 
manifest absurdity. 

11. Another legitimate consequence of this 
doctrine is that man is not in a state of probation. 



OF PREDESTINATION. 69 

There is a flat contradiction between the idea 
that man is in a state of probation and the affirm- 
ation that the whole series of volitions, states, 
actions, and events of his life is fixed, unchange- 
ably, by the Divine decree, before he comes. into 
existence. I have long regarded this as an 
inevitable deduction from the Calvinistic doc- 
trine of decrees, but it was not until lately that 
I found it actually advanced as a doctrine by a 
Calvinistic writer. On page 77 of Fisher s 
Catechism, the following occurs : — 

" Q. Is there any danger in asserting that 
man is not now in a state of probation, as Adam 
was? — Ans. No." 

" Q. What, then, is tie dangerous conse- 
quence of asserting that fallen man is still in a 
state of probation? — Ans. This dangerous conse- 
quence would follow, that mankind are hereby 
supposed to be still under a covenant of works 
that can justify the doer !" 

I do not mean to be understood that this 
dogma is held by all Calvinists, but, whether 
held or not, it is a legitimate inference. 

12. Let us now notice the bearing of this 
strange tenet upon some of the leading doctrines 
and facts of Christianity. Take the doctrine of 



70 CALVINISTIC DOCTKINE 

the Fall — which is understood to be that God 
made man in his own image — holy, righteous, 
capable of standing in his integrity, yet liable 
to be seduced from it ; and that man voluntarily 
transgressed, brought guilt and depravity upon 
himself, and involved his posterity in moral 
degradation and ruin. But, if the Calvinistic 
doctrine of decrees be true, there was obviously 
no fall in the case. There was a change in the 
condition of Adam, but that change was a part 
of God's eternal plan. Nothing occurred but 
what belonged to the divinely predetermined 
series of events. If Adam had acted otherwise 
than as he did, God's original purposes would 
have been frustrated. If there were any fall, 
it should be predicated of the Divine decrees 
rather than of the human subject thereof. 

13. Again : The plan of redemption, it is sup- 
posed, was designed to rescue him from a de- 
plorable, desperate condition, in which his per- 
verseness had placed him; but, if the doctrine 
we are considering be true, the redemption, so 
called, is nothing but a part of a chain of pre- 
determined events. He -was, and is, at no time, 
in any other condition than was devised and 
decreed by Jehovah as most conducive to his own 



OF PREDESTINATION. 71 

glory and the highest good of the universe. 
Thus, the redemption, about which so much is 
said, is resolved into a mere nullity. 

14. Again: The glorious doctrine of Christ 
crucified thrills the bosom of the church with 
intense emotions of fear, and penitence, and 
hope, and gratitude, and joy. Paul attached 
so much importance to it as to say : " For I 
determined to know nothing among men save 
Christ and him crucified.' ' But, view it in the 
light of the doctrine that God has decreed 
whatsoever comes to pass, and what does it 
amount to ? The sufferings and death of Christ 
derive their importance from the fact of their 
being propitiatory — an atonement. But for 
what shall they atone ? For acts which were 
determined upon, as a part of God's plan, for 
his glory, and the good of the universe, millions 
of ages before the human actors were born ; for 
acts which no more need to be atoned for than 
the actions of Jesus Christ himself. To say 
that those acts were wrong is to reflect upon 
the decrees of God, since nothing has come to 
pass but what was decreed by him ;" since, ac- 
cording to Mr. Barnes, we are "to interpret 
the decrees of God by facts, and the actual 



72 CALVINISTIC DOCTRINE 

result, by whatever means brought about, ex- 
presses the design of God." If men need 
atonement, they need it for doing the will of 
God, and for nothing else. Need I add that, 
in view of the Calvinistic doctrine of decrees, 
the doctrine of atonement by the sufferings and 
death of Christ is absolute nonsense ? 

15. Again : I affirm of this doctrine that it 
renders utterly baseless the doctrine of pardon, 
or the remission of sins. It renders the offer 
of pardon a mockery. For what is pardon 
offered ? For doing the will of Gf-od — for doing 
just what he decreed we should do ; for carry- 
ing into effect his eternal counsels. How can 
any man need pardon if this doctrine be true? 
Should it be said, in reply, that although the 
decrees of God have been invariably fulfilled, 
yet his precepts have been violated, I rejoin 
that the violation of these precepts was, accord- 
ing to the Calvinistic hypothesis, specifically 
dec?*eed. Unless decreed, it could not have 
come to pass. Hence, the violation was inevi- 
table, from the very nature of the case. God 
offers pardon to his creatures, who have invari- 
ably, from the commencement of their being, 
fulfilled his decrees. He offers pardon to them 



OF PREDESTINATION. 73 

for violating commands which it was impossible 
for them to keep, inasmuch as he had eternally 
decreed that they should not keep them, and 
his decrees are infinitely wise and holy, and 
cannot be frustrated. 

Further, if God's decrees are righteous (and 
we are told explicitly by the creed we are re- 
viewing that they had their origin in his "wise 
and holy counsel"), it follows that his precepts 
must be unrighteous, whenever they are as- 
sumed to be in opposition to his decrees ; and 
surely no one can need pardon for pursuing a 
righteous course in opposition to an unrighteous 
one. If it be said that his precepts and his 
decrees are all equally righteous, it follows that 
a course in direct opposition, in all respects, to 
a righteous law is, nevertheless, a righteous 
course, and thus the distinction between right- 
eousness and unrighteousness is destroyed. 
View the subject in whatever light you may, 
and the offer of pardon in connection with the 
Calvinistic doctrine of decrees, becomes an im- 
pertinence and an absurdity. 

16. And what is the effect of the Calvinistic 
theory of predestination upon the doctrine of 
regeneration ? Regeneration is usually under- 
7 



74 CALVINISTIC DOCTRINE 

stood to be a change by which unholy disposi- 
tions — dispositions at variance with the cha- 
racter and will of God — are substituted by 
those in accordance therewith. But, if Calvin- 
ism be true, regeneration is nothing more than 
a preordained change from doing the will of 
God perfectly in one way, to doing it perfectly 
in another w T ay. 

17. A consequence of this theory has been 
incidentally brought to view in illustrating a 
preceding argument, which deserves a distinct 
statement. It is that God has two hostile wills, 
in relation to the same thing — his decrees, and 
his published commands and prohibitions. He 
has enjoined certain modes of action, by the 
most solemn legislation, and yet decreed, from 
all eternity, that multitudes of those whom he 
has subjected to those obligations, shall con- 
stantly act at variance therewith ; so that mul- 
titudes of human beings are doing his will per- 
fectly, and yet violating his wall at the same 
time. 

18. This theory makes all civil government 
manifestly unreasonable. Civil government pro- 
ceeds upon the supposition that man is a free 
agent, capable of choosing and acting otherwise 



OF PREDESTINATION. 75 

than as he does : but this theory, as we have 
seen, is incompatible with free agency. 

And should we admit, for the sake of the 
argument, that it is not incompatible with free 
agency, it is still irreconcilable with civil go- 
vernment. Civil legislation prohibits various 
modes of acting. It assumes that the forbidden 
actions are wrong— injurious to society — 
whereas, this theory represents that all the 
actions that have been performed, or will be 
performed, were freely willed, purposed, de- 
creed, foreordained, and brought to pass by 
God himself — that there are no events, and can 
be none, but what are in precise harmony with 
his eternal purposes — so that, unless we suppose 
that God has from all eternity freely decreed 
what is wrong and injurious, thereby subjecting 
human legislators to the necessity of opposing 
his will in order to prevent outrage and injury, 
civil legislation admits of no justification or 
apology. 

And if this theory is incompatible with civil 
legislation, it is not less so with civil jurispru- 
dence. Men assume the right to inflict severe 
punishment upon their fellow-men for doing 
what cannot be avoided, or for not doing what 



76 CALVINISTIC DOCTEINE 

they cannot possibly do. Or, if it be admitted, 
for the sake of the argument* that they could 
act otherwise, still they are punished for doing 
and suffering, in all respects, the will of God, 
for merely exemplifying his eternal unchange- 
able decrees. Take either alternative, and 
human jurisprudence is palpably iniquitous. 

The only plausible apology that can be offered 
in behalf of civil government is, either that 
human legislators and judges, and jurors, and 
counsel, and sheriffs, and constables are passive 
instruments in the hands of God, in which 
case their proceedings are ludicrous, the actors 
being mere puppets, exhibiting all the appear- 
ance of self-determined motion, and yet, like 
those famous characters called Punch and Judy, 
acting only as determined and effected by the 
wire-worker ; or, admitting that they are free, 
and executing their own determinations, they 
too are doing precisely what God has foreor- 
dained ; so that, in this respect, the jury who 
pronounce the verdict of guilty, and the judge 
who pronounces the sentence of death, are upon 
a level with the alleged criminal. All have 
done, and are doing, just the things which God 



OF PREDESTINATION. 77 

has decreed they should do, neither more nor 
less. 

19. I cannot but regard this theory as sub- 
versive of every rational idea of a Divine moral 
government. Moral government implies pre- 
cepts or prohibitions, or both, enforced by re- 
wards and penalties, and addressed authorita- 
tively to beings capable of either obedience or 
disobedience. But of what use are precepts or 
prohibitions if every act of every individual is 
fixed beforehand by the Divine decrees ? As 
well might moral codes be addressed to steam- 
engines or to whirlwinds. The only plausible 
attempt that can be made to reconcile this 
theory of predestination with a Divine moral 
government, is to apply the term moral govern- 
ment to a certain class of preordained influences 
designed to bring about a certain class of pre- 
ordained results. But this is moral government 
in name merely. The process which the advo- 
cates of this theory call moral government is 
just as mechanical as that by which the motions 
of the planets are controlled. The judiciary 
system of the Divine government, with all its 
solemn pageantry, is thus reduced to a mere 
farce. Beings are arraigned, with great judicial 
7* 



78 CALVINISTIC DOCTKINE 

pomp, and condemned, or approved, punished 
or rewarded for actions which were decreed in- 
numerable ages before they were born, and 
brought to pass by influences beyond their 
control, for actions which were devised, decreed, 
and irresistibly brought to pass by the judge 
himself. 

20. We are now prepared for another conse- 
quence, which hangs like a millstone around 
the neck of this theory, and is sufficient, of 
itself, to sink it to the depths. It represents 
God not only as decreeing one thing and com- 
manding another directly adverse thereto, but 
also as decreeing and bringing to pass opposite 
and contradictory events. He ordained that 
one man should believe the Holy Scriptures, 
and reverence them, and that another man 
should, at the same time, deny, and hate, and 
vilify them. He ordained that men should at 
one period of their lives preach the gospel, and 
write in favor of Christianity, and at another 
period become infidel lecturers and disputants. 
He decreed that some should believe the Cal- 
vinistic doctrine of decrees, and teach it, and 
that others should, at the same time, regard it 
as false and oppose it. He has ordained that 



OF PKEDESTINATION. 79 

men shall take opposite sides on all great ques- 
tions, religious, philosophical, or political. He 
ordained the fugitive slave law and the recent 
Nebraska and Kansas enactment, and all the 
opposition from ministers and laymen, with 
which these measures have been regarded. He 
has ordained that one party shall laud them as 
just and patriotic, and that another party shall 
condemn and hate them as diabolical. He 
ordained the arrest of that man on the suspicion 
of murder, with all the conflicting opinions as 
to his guilt or innocence, the contradictory 
testimony of the witnesses, the contrary plead- 
ings of the counsel, the verdict of the jury pro- 
nouncing him guilty, the sentence of the judge 
condemning him to death, and the pardon of 
the governor under the full conviction of his 
innocence. All the conflicting opinions and 
acts in the fiercest controversy that ever raged, 
this theory traces up to the Divine foreordina- 
tion. 

21. It must have appeared to the audience, 
by this time, that the character of God is 
fearfully involved in this inquiry. 

(1). We have already seen that this theory 
draws after it the logical consequences that God 



80 CALYINISTIC DOCTRINE 

is the author of sin, or, if not the author of 
it in the strict and proper sense of the term, 
at least the plotter — the prime mover of it ; 
that he prefers sin to holiness in every instance 
in -which sin takes place ; that he regards sin 
as the necessary means of the greatest good ; 
that he has, at the same time, two hostile 
wills relative to the same thing. And now 
what shall we say of his wisdom, when we find 
him decreeing acts, and bringing them to pass, 
and yet, peremptorily forbidding them — enjoin- 
ing acts, by formal solemn legislation, which, 
from all eternity he has foreordained shall 
never be performed ? When we find him ordain- 
ing measures for the promotion, and measures for 
the counteraction, of his own plans ? When we 
find him ordaining all the contradictions and 
vacillations by which human conduct is diversi- 
fied and disgraced ? — when every example of 
the most contemptible folly that ever turned the 
laugh, or the sneer, or the frown, or the senti- 
ment of pity upon its immediate perpetrators, 
can be traced to the free counsels and designs 
of God, and finds its origin there ? 

(2). What shall we say of the sincerity of God 
when we find him enjoining one class of actions 
on pain of eternal damnation, while yet he has 



OF PREDESTINATION". 81 

decreed, and by unfailing means brings to pass, 
in the same subjects, an entirely opposite 
class ? — when we find him threatening, and ex- 
postulating, and professing to be grieved, on 
account of conduct which had its origin in his 
own free purposes, and is effected by his own 
providence? — when we find him engaged in en- 
forcing two wills respecting the same thing, 
one directly the opposite of the other, one of 
which must necessarily fail of accomplishment, 
and then, wrathfully charging the failure upon 
those who have acted in all respects as he 
ordained they should ? — when we find him 
offering salvation to all men, and solemnly 
asseverating that it is his will that all men 
should come to the knowledge of the truth, 
while yet the sinning, and ultimate damnation 
of myriads, were decreed innumerable ages 
before they existed? 

(3). What shall we say of his holiness, when 
the vilest crimes that ever caused the blush of 
shame, or the feeling of indignation or horror — 
fornication, adultery, bestiality, fraud, oppres- 
sion, lying, murder — are in perfect coincidence 
with his eternal purposes, parts of his great 
plan, when he chose them in preference to their 



82 CALVINISTIC DOCTKINE 

opposites, with all the means and appliances, 
great and small, by which they were brought to 

? 



(4). And w r hat shall we say of his equity and 
justice, when we find him placing his subjects un- 
der the necessity of violating his will in one way 
or another, either his secret decrees or his pub- 
lished enactments ? When we find him reward- 
ing one class of his subjects for fulfilling his 
decrees, and damning another class with ever- 
lasting tortures for doing precisely the same 
thing ? 

(5). And where is his benevolence, when he 
freely chooses, prefers, ordains, and brings to 
pass all the sin and misery in the universe? 

22. Again : It is obvious that this theory lays 
the foundation of a new system of morals. If 
it be insisted upon that, notwithstanding God 
has decreed whatsoever comes to pass, he is 
perfectly sincere, just, holy, and benevolent, we 
shall have obtained certain ethical principles 
which, if carried out into universal practice, 
would subvert all social order, and destroy all 
confidence. For instance, it will follow: — 

First. That a ruler may secretly will, pur- 
pose, decree, foreordain, that his subjects shall 



OF PREDESTINATION. 83 

act in a certain way. He may put into opera- 
tion effective measures to secure their concur- 
rence with his designs. Meantime, he may 
profess a profound and insuperable dissatisfac- 
tion with a very large proportion of the actions 
which he has predetermined and induced; he 
may indignantly condemn and threaten to pun- 
ish the actors; he may do all this, and yet be 
perfectly sincere. In other words, what men 
usually regard as the most thorough-paced du- 
plicity, is in entire accordance with perfect sin- 
cerity. By this principle, the worst hypocrite 
that ever lived may be fully vindicated from the 
charge of hypocrisy. 

Again: A being may give existence to a vast 
multitude of other beings, inferior, dependent, 
but yet intelligent. He may assert over their 
actions the most absolute control. He may pre- 
determine and bring to pass every one of their 
actions. He may " shut up all other ways of 
acting, and leave that only open which he had 
determined to be done." Meanwhile, he may 
issue laws peremptorily requiring conduct di- 
rectly opposite to his unchangeable predeter- 
minations, thus placing his creatures under the 
dire necessity of violating his secret decrees, or 



84 CALVINISTIC DOCTRINE 

Ills published laws ; and yet he may, with per- 
fect justice, arraign, condemn, and punish them 
for the violation of these laws, consigning them 
to eternal misery. This theory will furnish us 
with a criterion of moral character — a code by 
which the Neros, Domitians, Caligulas, and 
Diocletians, whom men have reprobated and ab- 
horred as tyrants, may be triumphantly vindi- 
cated and made honorable. 

Again: A being may be the author, or, if 
not, in the strictest sense, the author, at least 
the planner, the prime mover of all the wicked- 
ness that ever existed. He may use effective 
influences in bringing it to pass, so that it may 
be said, in truth, that he freely and unchange- 
ably preordained and produced it, and yet he 
may be perfectly holy. 

And again: A being may purpose, foreor- 
dain, and bring to pass all the sin and misery 
in the universe, and yet be perfectly benevolent. 
Here is a principle of ethics which will more 
than cover and vindicate the most atrocious 
cruelties of the Romish inquisition. The rum- 
seller, so called, who is the agent of incalculable 
mischief, may find under it the most ample pro- 
tection. His designs terminate upon the sale 



OF PKEDESTINATION". 85 

of his liquors, and the gains which result. If 
he could sell his fiery commodity, and secure 
his gains without the misery, he would. But, 
according to our new code of ethical principles, 
he might go much further. He might design, 
as an end, all the wretchedness that results, 
and prosecute his traffic as a means to secure 
that end, and yet be perfectly benevolent. 

Is it not plain that this theory, if adopted 
and carried out to its legitimate logical results, 
must revolutionize and reverse all our esta- 
blished conceptions of wisdom, sincerity, holi- 
ness, equity, justice, and benevolence, and in- 
troduce an entirely new estimate of moral con- 
duct? 

23. Further: This theory furnishes the most 
complete justification of all the conduct of the 
worst men that ever lived, both by the ethical 
principles which may be deduced from it, and 
by the single consideration that their every ac- 
tion is in perfect harmony with the Divine will. 
The New Testament speaks of men being with- 
out excuse; but I ask, what better excuse can 
be desired than that the conduct in question i& 
in precise accordance with the will of God? 
Men sometimes think it an apology to say that 



86 CALVINISTIC DOCTRINE 

they acted hastily — that they were misled by 
others— -that they were not aware of the mis- 
chief likely to result from their course ; but this 
doctrine puts them at once upon the highest 
possible ground of justification. The poor re- 
probate may be silenced, at the day of judg- 
ment, by the terrors which surround him, and 
by the stern authority of the judge, but not by 
the want of a valid plea. When the sentence 
shall go forth consigning him to perdition for 
the deeds done in the body, he will have in 
readiness, whether allowed to utter it or not, 
the unanswerable answer: "Lord, the deeds 
for which I am condemned were in all respects 
what thou didst predetermine. I have executed 
from first to last thy wise and holy counsels. 
Had I acted otherwise, I should have frustrated 
thy free purposes, formed before the foundation 
of the world. I have, indeed, gone contrary to 
thy published law, but that thou didst render 
inevitable by making that law antagonistic to 
thy eternal decree, which thou dost not allow 
to be thwarted, in any instance, by man or 
angel." 

This plea would be equally conclusive before 
any human tribunal. There are Calvinistic 



OF PREDESTINATION. 87 

lawyers, or lawyers who are members of Calvin- 
istic churches or congregations. The names of 
some of these are appended to a note soliciting 
for publication Dr. Boardman's sermons on 
Election, In defending alleged criminals, men 
of their profession often tax their ingenuity to 
the utmost for arguments. If the insanity of 
the prisoner can be established, they expect his 
acquittal, though he may have perpetrated the 
fatal violence. But why do they never offer, in 
behalf of the prisoner intrusting his case to 
them, that he has done nothing but what God 
willed and decreed from all eternity he should 
do? that, from the beginning to the end of the 
affair, he was but executing the counsels of 
Heaven — counsels which Heaven never suffers 
to be frustrated, either as to the end, or the in- 
strument. Some of them believe the doctrine, 
and desire that the public should believe it. 
Why, then, do they never plead it when pledged 
to give their client the benefit of every available 
argument ? Is it nothing to be able to say for 
him that he has not swerved a hair's-breadth 
from the designs of the great Sovereign of the 
universe, at whose judgment-seat all the deci- 
sions of human tribunals will be reviewed ? 



88 CALVINISTIC DOCTKINE 

They dare not offer such a plea. They know 
that common sense would laugh them out of 
countenance, if not out of court. And if all 
present were believers in the doctrine, they 
could not attempt to reduce it to its legitimate 
practical application without laughing in each 
other's faces — such is its essential absurdity. 
They may circulate it in sermons, in which elo- 
quent nonsense is drivelled with impunity, but 
they will not venture to propound it in a court, 
where common sense and equity bear sway. 

24. If this doctrine be true, it is wholly unne- 
cessary for any of you to impose any restraint 
upon your passions or wills. Are you tempted 
to indulge in sensuality, or to defraud your 
neighbor, and even to assassinate liim? And 
does the inquiry arise in your mind whether the 
act to which you are tempted is according to 
the will of God ? You have only to do it, and 
the result proves that it is decreed. So says 
Mr. Barnes: "The result, by whatever means 
brought about, expresses the design of God." 
If the act be not decreed, you cannot do it, 
though you try. If you can, it is decreed that 
you should; and your doing it is as inevitable 
as destiny itself. So you may just go forward, 



OF PREDESTINATION. 89 

and the result will be right; that is, if God's 
decrees are right. 

25. It is also an obvious consequence of this 
doctrine that no man can contribute anything to 
his personal salvation ; that his salvation or 
damnation is fixed wholly by the Divine decrees. 
He cannot influence his destiny by any effort he 
can make. There is no use in his trying. In- 
deed, the Westminster Confession of Faith 
informs us directly that man is " altogether 
passive" in " regeneration," and that his 
" perseverance" " depends not upon his own 
free will, but upon the immutability of the de- 
cree of election." So that all the exhortations 
of the gospel and of the pulpit, are utterly 
irrelevant. There is a very significant passage 
bearing upon this point in Chalmer's discourse 
on Predestination: "And now," says he, "you 
can have no difficulty in understanding how it 
is that we make our calling and election sure. 
It is not in the poiver of the elect to make their 
election surer in itself than it really is, for this is 
a sureness which is not capable of receiving any 
addition. It is not in the power of the elect to 
make it surer to God — for all futurity is sub- 
mitted to his all-seeing eye, and his absolute 
8* 



90 CALVINISTIC DOCTRINE 

knowledge stands in need of no confirmation. 
But there is such a thing as the elect being 
ignorant for a time of their own election, and 
their being made sure of it in the way of evi- 
dence and discovery." The amount is that a 
man may ascertain by exertion the fact of his 
election, but he can do nothing towards secur- 
ing it. Thus Mr. Wesley's famous consequence 
is established. "The elect shall be saved, do 
what they will ; the reprobate shall be damned, 
do what they can." It is plain from these 
reasonings that this doctrine tends to spiritual 
inactivity, and countenances licentiousness. 

But we are told, by Dr. Boardman, that the 
Divine " decrees are not the rule of our duty ;" 
that " w r e are not held responsible for not con- 
forming to them ;" that " we are not bound to 
act with the least reference to them." (p. 45.) 
What ! The subjects of a government not bound 
to act with the least reference to the decrees of 
its sovereign ! — not responsible for not conform- 
ing to them ! ! This is surely a strange doctrine. 
It is an indirect concession that the practical 
bearing of the Calvinistic doctrine of decrees 
cannot be defended. But it is said that we 
have no right to make God's secret decrees our 



OF PREDESTINATION. 91 

rule. Very true. We are not arguing from 
his secret decrees, but from what our brethren 
profess to know. If the doctrine in question 
be a secret, we would like to know by what 
authority it is so confidently stated in the Con- 
fession of Faith and the Catechism. How did 
they come by the knowledge of God's secret 
decree ? They may claim to be better educated 
than we are, and more intelligent, to have 
minds of a superior natural constitution; but 
we protest against their claiming to be intrusted 
with the secrets of heaven. 

26. This wonderful doctrine makes out the 
devil and his angels to be faithful servants of 
God. They have done, throughout the past, 
and are doing now, precisely what God, in his 
wise and holy counsel, foreordained they should 
do. 

27. It leads to Universalism. If all beings do 
as God has decreed, upon what ground can God 
punish any of them, then, in futurity ? You have 
only to connect with this doctrine the declara- 
tion that God is benevolent, or just, and Uni- 
versalism follows. 

28. It leads to rank infidelity. It is to my 
mind more reasonable to believe that God has 



92 CALVINISTIC DOCTEINE 

made no written revelation of his will, than that 
he has revealed such a doctrine as this. Let the 
opinion become prevalent that it is a doctrine of 
the Bible, and, as the consequence, the Bible 
will be rejected by thousands, yea, hundreds of 
thousands. It is impossible for the ablest dispu- 
tant to maintain a respectable argument against 
infidelity while standing upon this ground. He 
must assume the opposite ground, as the basis 
of his argument, or he will fail signally. The 
infidel objects to the Bible that it represents 
God as sanctioning crime, and making favorites 
of its perpetrators, and hence concludes that it 
cannot be true. 

The usual reply is that, so far from having 
sanctioned vice and its perpetrators, > he has 
solemnly prohibited it ; that he holds the perpe- 
trator guilty, condemns him to severe punish- 
ment, and will remit that punishment only in 
view of repentance, and reformation, and an 
atonement which fully vindicates the Divine go- 
vernment, and most impressively manifests its 
abhorrence of the course pursued by the trans- 
gressor. But what says this doctrine ? That 
God has freely, and from all eternity willed, de- 
creed, foreordained, whatsoever comes to pass. 



OF PREDESTINATION". 93 

■ 

The infidel objects that the Bible contains 
contradictions, and hence cannot be the word of 
God. The usual answer admits that God cannot 
contradict himself, but denies that the Bible is 
chargeable with self-contradiction. Whereas, 
this doctrine declares that God has decreed and 
brought to pass all the contradictions that were 
ever uttered. Can it be that God is the author 
of a book which represents him as ordaining 
and bringing to pass all the acts of crime and 
folly that were ever committed, including all 
the lies that were ever uttered, as having two 
hostile wills in relation to the same event, as de- 
creeing that his creatures should pursue a cer- 
tain course, and yet commanding them to pur- 
sue a contrary course, and then, damning them, 
thousands upon thousands, for doing what he 
decreed they should do? It is impossible for 
the infidel to frame a stronger argument than 
this doctrine supplies him with. 

I have shown, unanswerably, I think, that 
this doctrine leads, by obvious deduction, to 
the doctrine that God prefers sin to holiness 
in every instance in which sin takes place, and 
that sin is the necessary means of the greatest 
good. I will now quote an eminent Calvinistic 
minister upon the tendencies of this doctrine. 



94 CALVINISTIC DOCTEINE 

He is commenting upon what he calls " the third 
solution" of the question, " For what reason has 
God permitted sin to enter the universe?" 
which he states to be that " God chose that sin 
should enter the universe as the necessary 
means of the greatest possible good. Wherever 
it exists, therefore, it is, in the whole, better 
than holiness would be in its place" — the very- 
doctrine which we are told by high Calvinistic 
authority, has been a " common sentiment 
among New England divines since the days of 
Edwards." He says: — 

" The third solution has been extensively 
adopted by philosophers, especially on the conti- 
nent of Europe ; and its ultimate reaction on 
the public mind had no small share, we believe, 
in creating that universal skepticism which at 
last broke forth upon Europe, in all the horrors 
of the French Revolution. While the pro- 
foundest minds were speculating themselves into 
the belief that sin was the necessary means of 
the greatest good, better on the whole, in each 
instance, than holiness would have been in its 
place — common men were pressing the inquiry, 
< Why, then, ought it to be punished V Voltaire 
laid hold of this state of things, and assuming 



OF PREDESTINATION. 95 

the principle in question to be true, carried 
round its application to the breast of millions. 
In his Candide, one of the most amusing tales 
that was ever written, he introduces a young 
man of strong passions and weak understanding, 
who had been taught this doctrine by a meta- 
physical tutor. They go out into the world, to 
' promote the greatest good' by the indulgence 
of their passions ; certain that, on the whole, 
each sin is better than holiness would have been 
in its place. But when Candide begins to suffer 
the natural consequences of his vices, he feels 
it to be but a poor consolation, that others are 
now reaping the benefit of his sin. Is it surpris- 
ing that such a work induced thousands to 
disbelieve in the holy providence of God, and 
prepared multitudes to c do evil that good might 
come?'" [Christian Spectator, vol. i. pp. 378, 9.) 

It would be easier, and more reasonable, to 
believe in a plurality of gods, than that one 
God should be capable of such conflicting 
counsels. And this would bring us to the verge 
of Atheism. 

29. This doctrine covers with the wing of its 
sanction all the errors that were ever pro- 
mulgated or conceived. I do not say that they 



96 CALVINISTIC DOCTKIKE 

all grow out of it, but that it justifies them. 
Why should I oppose Romanism, or Universal- 
ism, or Socinianism, or Puseyism, or Infidelity, 
when they are all decreed by Jehovah ? Chris- 
tendom presents the strange spectacle of men 
prying into systems, bringing to the light, con- 
demning, and holding up to public odium their 
errors of theory and practice, and, yet, holding 
as a fundamental article of their own creed that 
God from all eternity freely decreed whatsoever 
comes to pass. Let them first reject and refute 
the error which vindicates all errors. What 
right has a Calvinist to find fault with any- 
thing ? 

30. Again : It clearly follows, from this theo- 
ry, that any attempt to prevent the commission 
of sin in our neighbors, is not only in opposition 
to the primary — the original will, the eternal 
purposes of God, but is also in opposition to 
the highest good of the universe ; and that we 
should, as reasonable beings, rejoice in every 
instance of sin — of lying, robbery, uncleanness, 
and murder — as in every instance of holiness. 

31. I do not identify this doctrine with pagan 
fatalism, but I hold that it is akin thereto, and 
that it tends to the same practical results. It 



OF PKEDESTINATION. 97 

is, in my opinion, worse than pagan fatalism. 
That doctrine represents all events and actions 
as strictly necessary, but it binds the gods as 
well as men. All bow to that mysterious power 
called fate. Thus it relieves the gods of all 
blame. But Calvinism asserts the freedom of 
Jehovah, and then imputes to him the foreordi- 
nation of whatever occurs in the whole uni- 
verse, and thus, by plain logical consequence, 
fastens upon him all the just blame of whatever 
is exceptionable. Calvinism is not pagan fatal- 
ism. It is Christian fatalism. It is fatalism 
baptized. 



DISCOURSE III. 



"In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being 
predestinated according to the purpose of Him who worketh 
all things according to the counsel of his own will." — Eph. 
i. 11. 

In the preceding discourse, I showed that the 
Calvinistic doctrine of the Divine decrees leads 
to the following consequences, namely, that 
man is not a free agent; that he is not pro- 
perly accountable for his conduct ; that there 
is no sin in the world ; or, that, if there be sin, 
God is the author of it ; or, that, if he be not 
strictly and properly the author, he is at least 
the prime mover of it ; that, if sin exist, God 
prefers sin to holiness in every instance in 
which sin takes place ; that sin is not an evil, 
but a real good ; that whatever is is right ; that 
there is no reasonable ground for repentance, 
or for prayer, or for pardon ; that regeneration 



100 CALVINISTIC DOCTKINE 

is nothing else than a change from perfect con- 
formity to the will of God in one way, to per- 
fect conformity to the will of God in another 
way; that the doctrines of the fall and redemp- 
tion by Christ are gross and palpable absurdi- 
ties ; that man is not in a state of probation ; 
that God has two hostile wills relative to the 
same thing ; that, not only are his secret de- 
crees and his written laws at variance, but he 
has also decreed and brings to pass opposite 
and contradictory events ; that civil govern- 
ment is wholly unreasonable ; that there is in 
fact no moral government ; that God is not 
holy, or just, or wise, or truthful, or benevo- 
lent ; or, that if God be nevertheless holy, and 
wise, and true, and just, and good, we have the 
foundation of a new system of morals, which, 
if adopted, must reverse all our estimates of 
moral character; that man cannot contribute any- 
thing to his personal salvation ; that the devil 
and his angels are as faithful servants of God 
as any of his elect. It was shown that it leads 
to Universalism and to rank infidelity; that it 
sanctions all the errors that w T ere ever promul- 
gated ; that it furnishes a complete justification 
of the worst conduct of the worst men that 



OP- PREDESTINATION. 101 

ever lived, tends to paralyze all effort to resist 
temptation, and condemns as impious any oppo- 
sition to the commission of sin by our neigh- 
bors, and, finally, that it is worse than the 
pagan doctrine of fatalism. 

I shall now endeavor to present the true doc- 
trine. As has been said, w T e do not object to 
the doctrine of predestination, but to the Cal- 
vinistic doctrine. The question is not whether 
God is a Sovereign, or whether he has his pur- 
poses or decrees, but how does he exercise his 
sovereignty — what are his purposes and de- 
crees ? We deny that he has foreordained 
whatsoever comes to pass. 

For all our information upon this great ques- 
tion we must inquire of the sacred oracles. 
We understand them to teach that God, fore- 
seeing, though not ordaining, the transgression 
of our first parents, decreed that it should sub- 
ject them to the penalty of death — eternal death. 
"In the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt 
surely die." He also decreed that their condi- 
tion should not be at once irremediable, but 
that a second probation should be allowed 
them. He also decreed that an atonement 
should be made, by which the claims of his 
9* 



102 CALVINISTIC DOCTRINE 

government should be vindicated, while he 
granted to the offenders a respite, and the ad- 
vantages of a new trial, and which should lay 
a firm foundation for whatever acts of mercy 
should be extended to them and their posterity. 
He further decreed that this atonement should 
be effected by the suffering and death of his 
Son, who, for the purpose of effecting this 
atonement, should assume our nature, and be- 
come God- man. The apostle instructs us that 
he was " delivered" to suffering and death, 
" by the determinate counsel and foreknow- 
ledge of God." It was also decreed that the 
benefits of this atonement should extend to all 
Adam's posterity — that Christ should die for 
all. He gave him " a ransom for all," that he, 
"by the grace of God, should taste death for 
every man." It was also predetermined in 
the counsels of Heaven, that a change should 
take place in the administration of the Divine 
government. The first administration, some- 
times called the Adamic law or covenant, was 
suited to beings perfectly innocent and pure, 
but not to fallen beings, as it made no provi- 
sion for pardon or moral restoration. Under 
its authority the sinner could have no hope. 



OF PREDESTINATION. 103 

Another decree provides that the Son of God 
shall bear the sceptre of authority — that the 
government shall be upon his shoulders. To 
this arrangement we suppose the words of the 
Psalmist to refer: " Yet have I set my king 
upon my holy hill of Zion. I will declare the 
decree : the Lord hath said unto me, Thou art 
my Son ; this day have I begotten thee. Ask 
of me, and I will give the heathen for thine in- 
heritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth 
for thy possession.'' (Ps. ii. 6, 7, 8.) Also the 
prayer of the apostle Paul, in which he speaks 
of "the mighty power" of God, "which he 
wrought in Christ, when he raised him from 
the dead, and set him at his own right hand in 
the heavenly places, far above all princi- 
pality, and power, and might, and dominion, 
and every name that is named, not only in this 
world, but also in that which is to come ; and 
hath put all things under his feet, and gave 
him to be the head over all things to the 
church, which is his body, the fulness of him 
that filleth all in all." (Eph. i. 21, 23.) It is 
further ordained that, under this new arrange- 
ment, faith shall be the condition of the sin- 
ner's acceptance with God- — that whosoever be- 



104 CALYINISTIC DOCTKINE 

lieveth shall be pardoned — justified from all 
things ; that the act of faith which secures the 
pardon of one sin shall secure the pardon of all 
then chargeable ; that whosoever is pardoned 
shall be made holy, conformed to the image of 
the Son of God, and made a child of God by 
adoption. " For w 7 hom he foreknew, them he 
also did predestinate to be conformed to the 
image of his Son." "Having predestinated 
us to the adoption of children by Jesus Christ 
unto himself, according to the good pleasure of 
his will;" that the great mediatorial scheme 
should be developed in successive dispensations, 
usually distinguished as the Patriarchal, Jew- 
ish, and Christian dispensations ; that one na- 
tion of people should be selected as the deposi- 
tory of the sacred oracles, and as a theatre for 
the exhibition of the true religion ; that in the 
fulness of time, Jews and Gentiles should be 
placed upon one common ground of religious 
privilege, the partition w r all being broken down. 
It is also decreed that there shall be a general 
judgment. God hath appointed a day in the 
which he will judge the world ; that there shall 
be a resurrection of the bodies of men ; that 
the bodies of the saints at the resurrection 



OF PREDESTINATION. 105 

shall be made very glorious; that the righteous 
of every age and country shall ultimately be 
gathered into one glorious place, from which all 
sin and pain shall be excluded, and shall con- 
stitute one undivided family forever. " Father," 
I will that they also whom thou hast given me 
be with me where I am, that they may behold 
my glory." "Having made known unto us 
the mystery of his will, according to his good 
pleasure which he hath purposed in himself: 
That in the dispensation of the fulness of times, 
he might gather together in one all things in 
Christ, both which are* in Heaven and Avhich 
are on earth." And, finally, it is decreed that 
w r hile the righteous shall have life eternal, the 
wicked, the finally impenitent, and unbeliev- 
ing, and unholy, shall go away into everlast- 
ing punishment — shall be imprisoned in a place 
originally prepared for the first rebels against 
the Divine government — the devil and his an- 
gels. 

Such, as I understand it, is the Methodistic, 
or Arminian, doctrine of the Divine decrees. 
There is no difficulty in sustaining this doctrine 
by Scripture. It is not liable to any of the 
objections which menace fatally the Calvinistic 



106 CALVINISTIC DOCTKINE 

scheme. There is no difficulty in perceiving its 
harmony with man's free agency and moral 
accountability. It does not give the slightest 
occasion for the question whether God is the 
author of sin. He has issued decrees respect- 
ing it; but they are all condemnatory. None 
of them preordain it. It does not admit the 
supposition of his being a participant in any 
unholy deed or device. The question never 
came up among Methodist divines, whether 
God prefers, in any instance, sin to holiness? 
They w T ould not, could not, consider it a de- 
batable question. Nor that other question — 
Is sin the necessary means of the greatest good? 
Calvinism is justly entitled to the honor of 
originating such questions as these. No one 
would ever think of affirming upon Arminian 
principles that whatever is is right. Arminian- 
ism lays a firm basis for Divine moral govern- 
ment, and also for civil government — for re- 
wards and punishments. It not only relieves 
the Divine attributes from the fearful suspicions 
and imputations with which Calvinism dishonors 
them, but surrounds them w T ith a transcendent 
glory. It protects the morality of the Bible 
from the devastating incursions to which Cal- 



OF PREDESTINATION 107 

vinism exposes it, and presents the most power- 
ful incentives to piety. It does not throw the 
protecting shield of the Divine decrees over 
every form of error and outrage with which 
earth is filled, or represent God as having two 
hostile wills. It forms no entangling alliances 
with heathen fatalism. We are not under the 
necessity of warning inquirers against commit- 
ting themselves to the practical influence of the 
Arminian doctrine of Divine decrees, by saying, 
with Dr. Boardman, that " These decrees are 
not the rule of our duty. We are not held 
responsible for not conforming to them. We 
are not bound to act with the least reference 
to them." 

The practical bearing of the Arminian doc- 
trine is eminently and obviously salutary. It 
has not a single aspect which is not favorable 
to piety and morality. Does a sinner tremble 
at the word of God ? He is made to feel the 
force of the inspired declaration that the way 
of transgressors is hard, and to ponder the 
advantages of reformation? Is he not appalled 
and paralyzed by the terrible announcement 
that all his misdeeds, the tendency, if not the 
nature of which he now contemplates w T ith hor- 



108 CALVINISTIC DOCTRINE 

ror, are the result of a power which he cannot 
successfully resist ; that he is bound to the hate- 
ful course of conduct which he deplores, by eter- 
nal decrees ; and that, in despite of any feel- 
ings or desires he may have, his course may be 
predestined to be worse in the future than in 
the past. 0, no ! He is assured that God 
never preordained sin. That he commands 
all men everywhere to repent, and that what 
he requires of men he will enable them to do. 
He is told that nothing binds him to sin but his 
depravity, that he may avail himself of the 
powerful influences of the Spirit of life in 
Christ Jesus, which can make him free from 
the law of sin and death ; and that whom God 
foreknew, as repenting, and believing, and 
availing themselves of remedial provisions, he 
''predestinated to be conformed to the image 
of his Son" — he hath chosen " to be holy and 
without blame before him in love." 

Has the man who is seeking with penitence 
and prayer the favor of God profoundly hum- 
bling views of himself? Does he think it to be 
a wonderful stretch of condescension and mercy 
in God to forgive his innumerable and grievous 
offences? And does he wonder whether God 



OF PREDESTINATION. 109 

will, in addition to pardoning him, raise him to 
those high relationships to the Godhead to which 
he has raised others ? Will he extend to me 
the grace of adoption ? Will he constitute and 
call me his child ? Shall I be favored with those 
blessed intimacies — those varied and manifold 
advantages of which that relation is the gua- 
ranty? How satisfactory the answer ! You will. 
You will be numbered with his sons and daugh- 
ters, the coheirs with his eternal — his only 
begotten Son. God hath not left this an open 
question. "He hath predestinated us to the 
adoption of children by Jesus Christ unto him- 
self." "For unto as many as received him, to 
them gave he power to become the sons of God, 
even to as many as believe in his name." 

Christians, you entertain high hopes of hea- 
ven. And yet, sometimes, it seems too much 
for your faith that God should confer upon you 
such blessedness and glory. Your faith almost 
staggers at the promise. You are ready to say— 

" How can it be, thou Heavenly King, 
That thou should' st us to glory bring — 
Make slaves the partners of thy throne, 
Deck'd with a never-fading crown ?" 

10 



110 CALVINISTIC DOCTKIJSTE 

Let your faith be invigorated by the assurance 
that this is settled beyond dispute by God's 
eternal purpose. It is decreed. " To him that 
overcometh will I give to sit down with me on 
my throne." " In whom also we have obtained 
an inheritance, being predestinated according 
to the purpose of him who w T orketh all things 
after the counsel of his own will." Nor has 
this measure been forced upon Jehovah. It is 
sometimes the case that sovereigns are compelled 
to yield privileges to restless and revolted sub- 
jects. Sometimes contemporary sovereignties 
combine to force a reluctant ruler into arrange- 
ments contrary to his preconceived and pre- 
ferred policy. Sometimes potent rulers yield 
their preferences to the sway of sage and influ- 
ential counsellors, and find themselves committed 
to a policy which they execute with reluctance, 
and with exceptions. It is not so with any of 
the decrees of the Most High. Who, being his 
counsellor, hath taught him ? He "worketh all 
things according to the counsel of his own will." 
"It is the Father's good pleasure to give you 
the kingdom." It is no less the pleasure of the 
Son : " Father, I will that they also that thou 
hast given me be with me where I am, that they 



OF PREDESTINATION. HI 

may behold my glory." And he has power to 
carry out his purposes to their entire fulfilment. 
0, how precious is this doctrine of Divine pre- 
destination ! 

You may have enemies. There may be those 
who would deny you a place in the church on 
earth. You may have been excommunicated 
and cursed for worshipping the God of your 
fathers after the manner which some call heresy. 
Your enemies would fain keep you out of heaven. 
They profess to be able to do so. But they are 
mistaken. God has not left it to them to de- 
termine who shall enter heaven and who shall 
not. He has fixed the conditions of salvation 
independently of their counsels— long before 
they existed— before the sun began his course. 
"He will have mercy on whom he will have 
mercy." To accomplish their end, they must 
be able to go behind all human arrangements 
to the decrees, the purposes of heaven, and re- 
yoke them. Will they be able to do that? Or, 
if unable to revoke, or induce him to revoke his 
decrees, will they be able to defeat them by ma- 
chinations or physical resistance? Surely not. 
He will show them "the immutability of his 
counsels." He will say to them, "My counsel 



112 CALVINISTIC DOCTEINE 

shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure." 
"There is no wisdom, or understanding, or 
counsel, against the Lord." " He will make 
the devices of the people of none effect." " The 
Lord of Hosts hath purposed, and who shall 
disannul it." "^Hallelujah, for the Lord God 
omnipotent reigneth !" 

And how glorious are the prospects which the 
decrees of God unfold! These bodies must de- 
cay. One of those decrees consigns us to the 
grave ; another provides that we shall be recalled 
— that death shall be conquered — shall be swal- 
lowed up of victory. The prearrangements of 
Heaven respecting the bodies of the saints, are 
thus disclosed: " It is sown in corruption ; it is 
raised in incorruption. It is sown in dishonor ; 
it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness ; 
it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body ; 
it is raised a spiritual body." 

Religion does not extinguish or impair our 
social feelings, but rather refines and invigorates 
them; and, among the hopes that we have been 
led to cherish, is that of a reunion with departed 
friends in heaven, and a participation in the 
society of the good of other climes and ages ; 
and it is expressly declared that the redeemed 



OF PREDESTINATION. 113 

of subsequent ages shall sit down with Abraham, 
Isaac, and Jacob, in the Kingdom of Grod. 

And while this doctrine is so full of consola- 
tion to the Christian, and so fraught with health- 
ful stimulus to piety, it is terrible to the sinner. 
He need not think to find anything in it to jus- 
tify or to apologize for his crime, or his impeni- 
tency. Nor may he indulge the hope that 
whatever may be the destiny of other sinners, 
he will escape the damnation of hell. There 
can be no influence brought to bear upon Jeho- 
vah sufficient to induce him to swerve in a single 
instance from his plans. The decrees of God 
are against him. He that believeth shall be 
saved. He that believeth not shall be damned. 
" These shall go away into everlasting punish- 
ment. " And he has power to execute his de- 
crees. All attempts at resistance will be as 
nothing. " The Lord reigneth ;,let the people 
tremble. " 

I have now presented the two rival theories. 
There is the Calvinistic doctrine, and there are 
the consequences to which it leads. We can 
easily detect the wisdom of the requisition that 
the teachers of it shall handle it with " special 
caution/' and account for their studiously keep- 
10* 



114 CALVINISTIC DOCTRINE 

ing it out of sight during revivals, and in their 
ordinary ministrations, and then seeking to di- 
vert attention from its practical tendencies by 
denying that the decrees of God are to be taken 
as the rule or test of our conduct. 

But do I not repeat an Arminian slander when 
I charge them with partially concealing or dis- 
guising the doctrine ? No ! We have high 
Calvinistic authority for the imputation. The 
following is the testimony of a distinguished 
Congregational minister of New England, the 
Rev. Dr. Harvey : — 

" There is a large number of orthodox minis- 
ters in New England who, from family alliances, 
from constitutional delicacy of temper, &c. &c, 
as I hinted above, will temporize and make 
smooth work, from an honest conviction that 
a full disclosure of the truth would alienate their 
hearers. The bitter revilings of base men have 
been gradually and insensibly leading Calvinistic 
ministers to hide their colors, and recede from 
their ground. Dr. Spring's Church, at New- 
buryport, Park Street, especially in Dr. Griffin's 
day, and a few others, have stood like the Ma- 
cedonian Phalanx. But others have gone back- 
ward. Caution, caution, has been the watch- 



OF PREDESTINATION. 115 

word of ministers. When they do preach the 
old standard doctrines, it is in so guarded a 
phraseology that they are not understood to be 
the same." [Harvey on Moral Agency, p. 174.) 

This is clear and indisputable. The Method- 
ist preachers are probably included among f the 
"base men" whose "bitter revilings" have 
brought about this state of things, as none have 
done more to bring Calvinism into discredit. 

And yet, with all this caution, this doctrine 
is assiduously taught to little children in Sab- 
bath-Schools. It is presented to them and in- 
culcated without disguise. I almost shudder 
when I think of it. Were all the wealth of this 
great city offered to me for the privilege of 
teaching this doctrine to my children, with the 
understanding that I would withhold counter- 
instruction, I would spurn the offer. At least, 
I would do so until my mind had become recon- 
ciled to the proposition by a slow and painful 
process of self-depravation, which, I acknow- 
ledge, would not be an impossibility. The 
apostle Paul speaks of those who through " love 
of money" have "erred from the faith." 

Our Calvinistic brethren may have some 
ground for claiming that they are in advance 
of us in learning and intelligence, but it is to 



116 CALYINISTIC DOCTRINE 

be hoped that they will not offer their holding 
this doctrine as proof of the justness of the 
claim. And if it be the case that some minds 
are determined, by peculiarities in their original 
formation, to the belief of Calvinism, I thank 
God that mine does not belong to that class. 
And, further, it may be a source of consolation 
to us, in our imputed inferiority, that it does 
not require much learning or intelligence to 
refute Calvinism, or to make its supporters 
ashamed of it. 

And when Calvinists ascribe our opposition 
to their doctrines to depravity, and call our ob- 
jections to it " impious cavillings/' as does Dr. 
Musgrave, we offer this apology, that our objec- 
tions are not alleged against what we under- 
stand to be the Scripture doctrine ; and that if 
their doctrine be true, and ours false, we are, 
after all, doing nothing but what God has wisely 
foreordained we should do. We would also 
suggest to them that any opposition to our 
course is resistance to the will of Heaven, so 
that it is a fair question whether the charge of 
depravity should not take the opposite direction. 
But I do not retort it. Methodists never, so 
far as I know, seek to raise the slightest suspi- 



OF PREDESTINATION. 117 

cion of the piety of their Calvinistic brethren 
on the ground of their being Calvinists. 

The assertion that Calvinism is specially and 
exclusively favorable to civil and religious liber- 
ty, is a sheer pretence. I will just state a few 
facts. When the Presbyterians obtained the 
ascendency in England, they proceeded to esta- 
blish themselves by law. The Westminster 
Confession of Faith was intended for the En- 
glish Establishment. Presbyterianism is the 
established religion of Scotland at this day, and 
also of Holland, Geneva, and some parts of 
Germany. Presbyterian ministers in Ireland 
are supported, in part, by the British Govern- 
ment. They thus consent that Methodists, 
Baptists, and others, shall be taxed for their 
support. That Presbyterianism is not the 
Established Church in this country may be 
owing altogether to the fact that it has always 
been too weak to place itself in that position. 
When the Independents, in Cromwell's time, 
obtained the ascendency, they followed the ex- 
ample of the Presbyterians. The Congrega- 
tionalists of New England, who are Calvinists, 
established their system, by law, in several of 
the colonies, and continued to be the Esta- 
blished Church after the Revolution, and until 



118 CALVINISTIC DOCTRINE 

the other sects, combining with unbelievers, 
became strong enough to put them down and 
change the State constitutions in favor of equal 
rights. And, within five or six years of the 
present time, a Presbyterian Church, in one of 
the States of this Republic, applied to the legis- 
lature, and obtained a grant of one thousand 
five hundred dollars to be expended upon a 
Presbyterian church edifice. Many Calvinists 
have held, and many do yet hold doctrines 
highly intolerant; and the history of Calvinism 
is crimsoned by records of blood spilled in 
support of its tenets. It would be great wis- 
dom on the part of our Calvinistic brethren to 
allow the question of the bearing of Calvinism 
upon civil and religious liberty to sleep, undis- 
turbed. 

A very strong presumption of the unsound- 
ness of the Calvinistic doctrine of decrees 
arises from the fact that its advocates are com- 
pelled, in answering objections to it, not only 
to disguise, but also flatly contradict it, and to 
substitute for it Arminian positions ; thus vir- 
tually conceding that it is indefensible. Dr. 
Musgrave, as we have seen, asserts explicitly 
that God has foreordained whatsoever comes to 



OF PREDESTINATION. 119 

pass. He argues that to deny this, would be 
in effect to deny that God is infinitely wise, 
benevolent, and powerful. He says : " We have 
proved, both by reason and revelation, that all 
things that come to pass are foreordained." 
He applies this doctrine to sinful actions in the 
following manner : " Now, that the whole of 
Pharaoh's conduct had not only been foreknown 
but foreordained is indisputable." Again, he 
says: '"In connection with the foregoing state- 
ments concerning the crucifixion of the Saviour, 
let us single out the case of one of the indivi- 
dual actors in that awful tragedy, one whose 
part was the most perfidious and execrable, and 
see whether his crime was not before ordained, 
and he the individual predesignated as its per- 
petrator." He proceeds to the proof of this 
proposition. But, when it becomes necessary 
to meet the palpable and irrefutable objections 
that this doctrine makes God the author of sin, 
and takes away the responsibility of the crea- 
ture, he is compelled to change entirely his 
ground. He substitutes permission for foreor- 
dination, and defines permission to mean simply 
not preventing. " And is there no difference," 
says he, " between God's making, or exciting 



120 CALVINISTIC DOCTRINE 

men to sin, by his power or influence, and his 
permitting , or not preventing them from sin- 
ning ? Between his determining to produce 
the evil himself, or to cause others by his power 
to do it, and his predetermining to permit men 
to abuse their liberty and to commit the evil by 
the unpr evented exercise of their own voluntary 
efficiency ?" 

I reply — there is a very great difference. It 
is nothing less than the difference between Cal- 
vinism and Arminianism. He is led to deny 
his own doctrine, and take refuge in the one he 
has tried so hard to refute. 

The Rev. Dr. Baker, of ■ Texas, in a tract 
published by the Presbyterian Board of Publi- 
cation, and entitled The Standards of the Pres- 
byterian Church a Faithful Mirror of the Bible, 
attempts to establish by Scripture the proposi- 
tion — " God from all eternity did, by the most 
wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely and 
unchangeably foreordain whatsoever comes to 
pass." But in another, published by the same 
institution, and entitled The Sovereignty of Grod 
Explained and Vindicated, the design of which 
is to. present the doctrine of Divine decrees in 
such a light as will obviate the usual objections 



OF PKEDESTINATIOX. 121 

to the Calvinistic view, he says : " Certain 
things God brings to pass by a positive agency. 
Others he simply permits to come to pass. 
And let it be remarked, permission and appro- 
bation do not, by any means, mean the same 
thing." Again : " Does anyone ask what is 
the difference between bringing to pass, and 
permitting to come to pass ? I answer : God 
brought to pass the incarnation of his Son. 
He permitted to come to pass his crucifixion. 
The difference is as wide as the east is from the 
west." 

But if God simply permits some things, 
why do the creed and the catechism of the 
Presbyterian Church assert, so unequivocally, 
that he has from all eternity foreordained what- 
soever comes to pass, and that he executes, or 
brings to pass all his decrees ? The contradic- 
tion is manifest. 

The Rev. Dr. Fairchild, in his famous Great 
Supper, says : " Calvinists do not regard the 
decrees of God as extending to all events in 
the same manner. Some things God has deter- 
mined to effect by his own agency, and other 
things he has decreed to permit or suffer to 
be." 

11 



122 CALVINISTIC DOCTRINE 

But, if the Calvinistic doctrine be that his 
decrees merely " extend to all events" (a very 
different thing fr.om his decreeing all events), 
and that while he " decrees" and " effects" 
some he merely "permits" or "suffers" other 
events, what must we understand to be the Ar- 
minian doctrine, against which they are called 
to contend so earnestly? Are they prepared 
to acknowledge that they have abandoned Cal- 
vinism and run into Arminianism? Do they 
mean to say that there is no difference between 
these systems on the point in question ? Not 
at all. How then do they preserve the anta- 
gonism of the two creeds ? What is the Armi- 
nianism against which they are arrayed ? Dr. 
Musgrave thus attempts the solution of this 
question. 

" Now, I submit, whether the difficulty, thus 
confessedly pressing against both systems, is 
not capable on our principles, of a much more 
full and satisfactory conclusion. For we not 
only say, as Wesley does, that ' God knew that it 
was best, on the whole, not to prevent the first 
sin of Adam,' but we add, that, knowing this, 
he determined not only to permit that, but all 
the sins that he knew would follow from it, and 



OF PEEDESTINATIOJS". 123 

to limit and overrule the whole for his most ex- 
cellent glory.' ' 

It seems, then, that the difference between 
Calvinism and Arminianism respecting the Di- 
vine decrees is that Calvinism affirms that God 
knew it was best, on the whole, not to prevent 
the sins which he has not prevented, but to per- 
mit, and limit and overrule them, while Armin- 
ianism affirms that God knew it would be best, 
on the whole, not to prevent the first sin, but 
determined to prevent all the sins that he fore- 
saw would flow from it. What a strange state- 
ment ! To what shifts are these men driven 
by their unfortunate cre^d ! Where does Mr. 
Wesley, or any other Arminian writer, say 
this directly or indirectly ? Our author very 
wisely declines any references at this point. 
Mr. Wesley does, indeed, deny that God per- 
mitted sin, even "the first sin of Adam," in 
the sense of approving or tolerating it ; but 
whoever denied that God permits, in the sense 
of suffering — not forcibly preventing, the sins 
which actually occur ? He appropriates to him- 
self, unfairly, Mr. Wesley's doctrine, and then 
imputes to Mr. Wesley a tenet so perfectly 
foolish that it may be doubted whether any man 



124 CALVINISTIC DOCTRINE 

ever advanced it, whether sane or insane, drunk 
or sober. 

No ! these are not the doctrines of Calvinism 
and Arminianism respectively. The reader will 
see the importance of the pains taken, in the 
first discourse, to identify Calvinism. I proved 
beyond dispute, that Calvinistic creeds, Cate- 
chisms, and other theological treatises, teach 
explicitly, that God has purposed, decreed, fore- 
ordained, whatsoever comes to pass ; that in 
some way or other he brings to pass all events ; 
that nothing will, or can, come to pass but 
what he has ordained ; that none of his pur- 
poses can be defeated ; that it cannot, with truth, 
be said of any event— it may or may not occur; 
and that all actual results, by whatever means 
obtained, are expressions of the design, or de- 
cree of God. Arminianism teaches on the 
contrary, that God has not ordained whatsoever 
comes to pass — that some things he has pre- 
ordained ; that other things he has not, but has, 
nevertheless, approved and commanded them, 
leaving it to the free agency of the creature to 
fulfil his requisitions ; that other things, he not 
only has not foreordained, but, has condemned 
and prohibited them, and yet permits or suffers 



OF PREDESTINATION. 125 

them to be, in preference to that violent inter- 
ference with free agency which would be neces- 
sary to their forcible prevention. 

Dr. Fairchild tells us that "this distinction 
between a decree to effect and a decree to per- 
rait has been adopted by Predestinarian divines 
in all ages." 

Yes, in all ages Predestinarian divines have 
been compelled to abandon and contradict their 
creed in the progress, and for the purpose, of 
its defence. But Calvin himself formally dis- 
cards and protests against this distinction. He 
says respecting it : " A question of greater 
difficulty arises from other passages, where God 
is said to incline or draw according to his own 
pleasure, Satan himself and all the reprobate. 
For the carnal understanding scarcely compre- 
hends how he, acting by their means, contracts 
no defilement from their criminality, and even 
in operations common to himself and them, is 
free from every fault, and yet righteously con- 
demns those whose ministry he uses. Hence 
was invented the distinction between doing and 
permitting ; because to many persons this has 
appeared an inexplicable difficulty, that Satan 
and all the impious are subject to the power and 
11* 



126 CALVINISTIC DOCTRINE 

government of God, so that he directs their 
malice to whatever end he pleases, and uses 
their crimes for the execution of his judgments. 
The modesty of those who are alarmed at the 
appearance of absurdity, might perhaps be ex- 
cusable, if they did not attempt to vindicate the 
Divine justice by a pretence utterly destitute of 
any foundation in truth. They consider it 
absurd that a man should be blinded by the will 
and command of God, and afterwards be 
punished for his blindness. They therefore 
evade the difficulty, by alleging that it happens 
only by the permission of God, and not by the 
will of God; but God himself, by the most 
unequivocal declarations, rejects this subter- 
fuge." 

But Calvin protests in vain against resorting 
to this "evasion" and " subterfuge." It is the 
only way in which the advocates of his doctrine 
can make a plausible show of argument when 
pressed with certain objections. Hence we find 
the Westminster divines employing it. They 
tell us in their Confession of Faith, that God 
was pleased, according to his use and holy 
counsel, to permit the sin of our first parents. 
Lest, however, the faithful should fall into a 



OF PKEDESTINATION. 127 

serious mistake, another part assures them that 
the providence of God " extendeth itself to the 
first fall, and all other sins of angels and men, 
and that not by a bare permission, but such as 
hath joined with it a most wise and powerful 
bounding, and otherwise ordering and governing 
of them, &c." The nature of that "ordering 
and governing ,, is explained in the declaration 
that " God from all eternity did by the most 
wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely 
and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to 
pass." But how learned men can talk of God's 
permitting what he has eternally and unchange- 
ably ordained, is a mystery to some of the un- 
learned. Is it necessary to tell us, gravely, 
that God permits to come to pass that which 
from all eternity he freely ordained shall come 
to pass ? He permits men and angels to do 
what he has predetermined they shall do, and 
what they cannot avoid doing ! Wonderful ! ! 

The apology for this gross misapplication of 
language, on the part of men whose learning is 
sometimes magnified almost into infallibility, is 
found in their distressing emergency. In no 
other way can they, with any plausibility, meet 
their opponents. The usefulness of this term 



128 CALVINISTIC DOCTRINE 

" permit'' is admirably indicated by the account 
which a Presbyterian colporteur gives of an 
interview with some who objected to the Calvin- 
istic doctrine of decrees. He says : — 

" I felt myself, however, sometimes compelled 
to combat with the opponents of our Calvin- 
istic creed. On one occasion entering a house, 
the members of which all attended the Presby- 
terian Church, but were not members, I sold a 
Confession of Faith to the gentleman ; his 
lady inquired what the name of the book was ; 
and on being told, after turning over its pages 
in a hasty manner, exclaimed : ' I could never 
allow that book to be under my roof — it should 
not be read, and it never ought to have been 
printed. ' 

" What was I to do ? The doctrine of our 
Church, so far as election is concerned, was 
attacked. After some little conversation on 
the subject, I found that she and her son 
charged our Confession with teaching that God 
passed a decree which put the fall of Adam be- 
yond the possibility of escape." 

Here was an exigency. Let us see how he 
meets it. That the Confession does teach the 
doctrine which the lady and her son ascribed 



OF PREDESTINATION. 129 

to it, is as plain as anything can be. He de- 
creed ivhatsoever comes to pass, and executes his 
decrees. Does he ask her what objections she 
has to this doctrine and offer to refute them ? 
Does he directly and promptly deny that Cal- 
vinism teaches this doctrine ? No ! Such a 
course would be rather hazardous, considering 
the character of the books he was seeking to 
distribute, and did actually leave with them. 
What course, then, does he take ? " I told her," 
says he, " if the chapter on the fall of man 
said so, I was as loath to believe it as she was; 
and if she could find it so, I would condemn the 
doctrine." Mark! He does not say, uncon- 
ditionally and unequivocally that he condemned 
the doctrine, and was as loath to believe it as she 
was, but if the chapter which treated on the fall 
of man said so. Well, what follows : " On turn- 
ing to the 6th chapter, how surprised was she to 
read — i This their sin God was pleased accord- 
ing to his wise and holy counsel to permit.'' ' 
This word permit helped him out of his diffi- 
culty. " Here was a fact," says he, " of which 
they had never heard before, and which gave 
them no little satisfaction." He doubtless left 
them under the impression that the Confession 



130 CALVINISTIC DOCTRINE 

of Faith does not teach that God decreed and 
brought to pass the sin of Adam. However, 
he did not leave them until they willingly pur- 
chased the Confession of Faith, the Great Supper, 
and Fisher 's Catechism, which asserts, as I have 
already shown, that " the very reason why any- 
thing comes to pass in time is, because God has 
decreed it," that " none of the decrees of God 
can be defeated, or fail of execution ;" and that 
God "predetermines the creature to such or 
such an action, and not to another, shutting up 
all other ways of acting, and leaving that only 
open which he had determined to be done." 

Another presumption in favor of Arminian- 
ism results from the readiness with which 
Methodist preachers are installed as pastors of 
Calvinistic churches, both old and new school, 
with the understanding, if their own statements 
be reliable, that they are not required to re- 
nounce or contradict the Arminian creed. 
Arminian ministers are coming into great de- 
mand by Calvinists. They are admitted into 
the Methodist ministry with the understanding 
that they are sound Arminians. They remain 
for years without exciting the least suspicion of 
their orthodoxy. When, all at once, without 



IV 



OF PREDESTINATION. 131 

any prior change of ecclesiastical relations, or 
intimation of a change of theological views, they 
walk into Calvinistic pulpits. I make no remarks 
at present upon the morality of this course, but 
deduce that Arminianism preaching, to some 
extent, is necessary to keep up Calvinistic 
congregations. 

Methodists, you may well prize your creed. 
Tour ministers can preach it without reserve. 
You can defend it. The water of life comes to 
you through no corrupting medium. You are 
in no danger of inhaling poisonous sediment. It 
will bear analysis. It comes to you fresh and 
abundant. Drink it, and dig channels wide and 
long for its diffusion, that others may be blest 
as you are. 



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